Kaboom! 2 Lives Left
by Reynutocx
Summary: *DISCONTINUED* Death Note through Matt's eyes. Disclaimer: I own nothing but my own creativity.
1. Level 1

**AN: Hey guys. I'm Reynutocx. Most of you probably don't know about me, that's not important right now. The important thing is this: Due to NaNoWriMo, all my first chapters are pre written. I'll be uploading every Friday (unless I have major computer problems) until the end of November. I'll keep you posted from there.**

I can't remember when I first met Mello. It was probably the first day he came to Wammy's house. I've lived there for as long as I can remember. I can't remember my parents. I've got no idea if I was taken away by Wammy, or if they just didn't want me anymore. The list of things that I _do_ know about myself it pretty short. I don't even know what country I'm originally from. None of that really bothers me though. I mean, what good what it really do to know?

Anyway, back to Mello.

Ever since we were little, Mello wanted to be the best. He had a quite temper and blew up when people were better than him. He'd take on kids much bigger than him without so much as a second thought. I usually wound up breaking up the fights. He got a reputation as a troublemaker, and it seemed to make him happy. I didn't really understand why he did it. I knew Mello wasn't a bad kid. After a while, I figured out that he was doing it for the attention. Not everyone got an equal amount of attention at Wammy's house; the smarter you were, the more time was spent on you. Mello wasn't smart enough to get special treatment, so he resorted to the other extreme just to get people to notice him.

I can't say that's what drew me to him. I really couldn't put my finger on why I liked him so much. He wasn't the most liked kid, or the smartest, and he certainly wasn't the best behaved, but he was the most interesting. His eyes always seemed to gleam with an intense light as if to say _"You think you're better than me? Prove it."_ Mello yelled at everyone else, but not me. I was special. We wound up spending more and more time together until we were almost inseparable. After a while, we began insulting each other on a daily basis, but in a friendly way. People often asked me why I hung out with him so much since we were always fighting. I responded with "I had a fight with Mello? When?" because I genuinely didn't know. They'd either try to explain it to me, or just shake their head and walk away. I didn't mind. I liked hanging out with Mello. The only time when we were apart was when we were training or being tested.

Every year, Wammy made us take a test to measure our intellect. The top three kids then got special treatment and training for that year until everyone was retested. I, personally, hated the testing process. It was long, grueling, and, in my opinion, pointless. They had very little snack breaks, so I was always hungry and annoyed by the end of it. Mello had a different opinion. In his mind, the test were the only way to success. If he did well, people noticed him, if people noticed him, he could influence them, if he could influence them, he could convince them that he was the best. He'd study like crazy for the tests every year, even though he didn't really know what they'd be about. And, every year, he'd come out as one of the top three. Until the year he was about eight or nine.

Mello had run the the chart about two seconds after it had been put up, stared at it for a second, then had walked off. I'm not sure where.

I looked for his name. There it was:

Mihael Keehl: 4

" _Crap,"_ I thought. Mello was not going to be happy about this.

It wasn't like he was stupid or anything though. Mello was one of the smartest people I knew, although I was in an orphanage devoted only to geniuses, maybe that didn't count for anything. Mello was smart, he just too human. I checked the chart for the top three kids. Yep, they were the weird ones, almost like aliens or robots or something.

L, the first name, lacked almost all social skills. I don't think the guy's ever had a friend in his life before in his life. I tried talking to him as much as I could without being too rude, but he just probably regarded me as an annoying little kid. He was way older than anyone else at Wammy's house. He says he remembers life before Wammy's house, but he won't talk about it with me. He's actually taken cases outside of Wammy's house too, but again, won't talk to me about it. It makes sense that he'd be first.

Then there was Near, who I swear is a robot. He really young, but he's the calmest little kid I've ever met. To be honest, he freaks me out with his huge dark eyes and all white clothes. Even his hair was white. He's quiet and preferred to sit rather than stand. He was always playing with dolls and toys silently in the background, although that might just be a phase.

Then, well, then there was me. I don't even consider myself that smart, so I've no idea how I wound up in the #3 spot. Seriously, I snuck my DS in and played on it for half of the time. Like I said, I don't take the testing very seriously.

That night, Mello had come into my room in angry tears. He didn't say where he'd been, and I didn't ask. I'd heard the shouts from Wammy's office. It really wasn't an effective way of making a point.

"It's not fair!" Mello had shouted. It was typical of him to get angry when he was sad. I didn't like it. I was much more likely to keep a level head when I was angry, and I didn't understand why Mello couldn't do that too. After a while, I'd developed a pretty effective way of calming him down. It was surprisingly simple, but it only worked when I did it. Basically, I all I had to do was tell him everything was ok, he was smart, and I still liked him. That kind of thing seemed to really matter to him, and, since it was all true, I didn't mind reminding him.

"I know it's not," I said reaching out and tugging him inward for a hug. "But they retest every year."

"Easy for you to say," Mello muttered against my shoulder. He was a couple inches shorter than me, so we thought that I was older, but neither of us knew for sure. If Wammy had our birth records, he'd never been inclined to show them to us. Strangely enough, we did know our birthdays. I'd like to see the logic behind that.

I patted Mello's head. His hair was getting really long. It was almost at his chin, because he kept refusing to get a haircut. I liked it in spite of the fact it made him look girly. I secretly thought that it was my fault it was because of me Mello wouldn't get a haircut. It really was my fault, because I do like to play with it. It was really soft and he didn't seem to bother him any. Besides everything's cooler when it's someone else's, even hair.

"Look at this as a one-time thing," I said. "Just you wait; next year, you'll be back on top."

"I could have practiced more," Mello said. "If I'd done more work, I could have beat at least Near."

Mello went on about how, with more hard work, he'd be better than everyone else. It was a reoccurring problem with him. It made me sad, because I knew that he might be able to beat the others for a time, but he'd never be as smart as them. I hate thinking it about it like that, but it's the truth. I makes me sad to think about what Mello might have been able to do if he had just been born a little bit smarter. That's the worst part, because it shouldn't even be an issue! Mello's a genius, an honest to God genius. He should be out in the real word getting praised for all his work by the majority of England, or even the world, not stuck in Wammy's house having to take a backseat to all of the other kids. The unfairness of it all makes me want to break something.

I let Mello finish his speech before letting him go.I knew he'd never admit it, but he wouldn't mind if I just held him and listened to him talk for hours. I was the only person who really cared for him. Sure, Wammy takes good enough care of us. He make sure we're all fed and healthy and that sort of thing, but he's never had a conversation with any of us beyond "How's your training going?". Most of the kids don't mind it, and I think that Near actually likes it, but Mello's not a robot. Neither am I.

"Hey," I said. "Do you want to stay the night?"

Mello nodded. He considered himself too grown up to as if he could, but he'd never refuse when I offered. We wound up in the same bed most nights anyway.

Mello kicked off his shoes and got into bed. I don't think he even knows what pajamas are. I don't mind; everyone's kind of weird at Wammy's house.

I turned off the light, ran across the room, and jumped onto the bed. I'm not scared of the dark, not really, but when the lights goes off, my mind starts racing. I imagine all sorts of things that could go wrong. Primarily someone hidden in my room. They'd reach out their cold hand, grab my leg, and pull me under the bed. I'd be dragged down a tunnel where no one could hear my screams. No one would ever find me. I was always relieved when I reached the safety of my bed.

Mello, since he didn't know, just laughed and cuddled up next to me. It seemed stupid to tell him when there were so many so more important things going on.

Mello fell asleep relative quickly that night. He'd had a long day. First was the testing process, then the agonizing wait for the results, in which, he snapped at anyone who came near him. After hours of that, the results had been posted. Mello had a screaming match with Wammy right after that. Denied any sort of movement on the list, Mello had gone to his room where he had either trashed it or eaten his entire illegal chocolate stash from under his bed. I didn't know which one. Apparently still unhappy after that, he had come to see me which, in my opinion, was what he should have done first.

As I watched Mello sleep against my chest, his slow breaths tickling my cheek, my mind kept coming back to the testing. I didn't really care where I wound up on the spectrum. Mello clearly did. It broke him apart and made life harder for everyone. So, that was the night I decided to become average. Well, average for Wammy's house. It wasn't like I wanted to go on of any the missions the top kids wanted to go on anyway. I couldn't care less about fighting crime. The only reason I was still Wammy's house was because I'd always lived there. I was lazy that way. I didn't mind coming in tenth place year after year if it meant that Mello came in third. I actually preferred it that way.

So, over the years, that's what I did. I stopped trying so hard on the tests. I stopped paying attention in training lessons. My notebooks went from pages of notes to pages of doodles. Sure enough, my spot slipped. It was actually a relief not to be one of the best anymore. I preferred to melt into the background whenever I could. Now that I was "a lost cause", no one looked to me for the answers. I wasn't forced to get up early and go to extra training sessions. I loved it. I developed an intense addiction to video games. They were awesome! They were my life. I'd lose myself in the other worlds for hours at a time. The idea of escaping reality and becoming a hero drew me in. I finally found something I was good at and I liked. They were the only thing I wouldn't let Mello beat me at.

Mello's life, on the other hand, had become training, studying, and testing. He and Near had been tied for first place, since L had finally moved out, for the past three years. It was the first time, at least that I could remember, that there had ever been a tie at Wammy's house. Not even the tests could tell who was smarter.

I didn't see as much as of Mello as I used to, because if he wasn't training, he was studying. He was borderline paranoid about being better than Near. It was hard to say if he was happy, but I knew he'd be miserable if he wasn't in the top three kids. Most nights, he would either comes into my room and pass out on my bed, or I would find him asleep on some book in his room.

On the rare occasions when he did put down his books, we would hang out. We mostly just played video games or lay on my head and talk about stuff. I already know most of the stuff that Mello says, but it was nice to just talk to someone. The only other person who I use to have conversations with was L, but he's far away in Japan. I'm not sure what he was doing, but I think it has something to do with Kira. He did send us the occasional message now and then, but it wasn't the same. I didn't have any other friends and I didn't really want to make any. I was fine with just having Mello.

"What do you think's out there?" Mello asked on one of our free night. We were both laying on my bed facing the ceiling. Mello's head rested on my shoulder as we talked. The two of us had been up for hours and it had gotten so late everyone else in Wammy's house had fallen asleep.

"Out where?" I asked.

"You know; outside Wammy's house."

"Well, crime, I guess," I said. "There'd be no need for us if there wasn't."

Mello sighed huffily. "I know that," he said. "I mean what do you think it looks like?"

We both knew basic geography, so I guessed that wasn't what he was talking about the actual, physical land structure. I ran through a list of videogames in my head. I'd like to say it was like Final Fantasy or Legend of Zelda, or something, but I knew Mello wanted a serious answer.

"Sims," I answered. "It's like Sims."

"That's the most boring game ever."

I shrugged as much as I could lying on my back. "Life's boring."

"No. Pick a different one."

"Fine." I racked my brain. "Grand Theft Auto."

Mello shook his head in disbelief. "GTA? Really?"

"It would explain all the crime and why we have to fight it."

Mello, although he wasn't much of a gamer, did know a lot about various games and their plotlines from hanging out with me. I wondered how his brain could hold all that information along with the training.

"Yeah, well I'm going to find out myself for sure one day," he said. He still sounded unconvinced. "After I beat Near, I'll get to go out on all the missions."

"What about me?" I asked. "I'm never going to be number 1." It was true now. Even if I wanted to be, I don't think I'd ever be able to give up video games. I'd live like a normal person if I had to. They were my true love. Besides, I didn't want to do all the work. It's kind of like when your teacher gives you a page of 20 math problems that you already know how to do. You get bored after the first three and just stuff the paper in your backpack and then finish it really quickly the next day in the period before math.

Mello frowned slightly. "I'll break you out. Then we can fight crime together."

I raised an eyebrow. "Really? Mr. I-Have-To-Be-The-Best-At-Everything-And-I-Only-Work-Alone is willing to share the spotlight with someone else?"

Mello kicked my leg. "Shut up, Matt. I'm not going to let you "share the spotlight". You can be my assistant or something."

"Oh, so I can be your minion?"

Mello laughed. "Yes!"

"Your monkey?"

"Yeah!" Mello cracked up more.

"It's nice to know that you think so highly of me," I grumbled.

"Shut up, Matt," Mello said dismissively cuddling closer to me.

I smiled, but it getting harder to ignore the fact that we weren't little kids anymore. Like it or not, Wammy's house was slowly transforming all of us into lethal weapons, even me. I was the tech guy. I'm not sure how that had happened. I had been determined to stay out of the loop, but they had caught me with something I was interested in. Curse them! I loved computers, but I hated working for Wammy. I wasn't even sure why I hated it. Wammy a nice guy. I guess I just didn't like the idea that he'd already planned out my whole life. I wondered if Mello felt the same way.

"Hey, Mello?" I asked.

No answer.

"Oh, come on!" I said. He'd fallen asleep on me again. His head was still resting heavily on my shoulder. Half of me wanted to wake him up, but the other half knew to let the guy sleep. He didn't get much of it these days.

Mello had always used to go outside. Wammy had a large yard outside of the big house surrounded by a fence. Mello always used to go out there and play with the other kids. He'd drag me along most days. His favorite sport was football, which I'm rubbish at by the way. You'd think that years of it, I'd be at least ok at it, but no! I always wound up on the ground all scraped up with Mello laughing manically above me. As bad as that was, at least we still got to spend time together.

We were a long way from those days now. Mello hadn't been outside in so long he looked almost like an albino, or worse, Near. His skin was so white, I swear he'd become a vampire and hadn't told me. He blew up more frequently now and about much less significant things. He always seemed to be on edge about something.

I sighed. This obsession with being the best was going to kill him one day.

"I'm getting you outside tomorrow," I told Mello who was still sleeping. "I don't care what you've got planned. We're playing football."

 **AN: Americans, this is for you: Football = Soccer**


	2. Level 2

"Matt! Watch out!"

Too late. The football hit me squarely in the forehead. I fell backwards onto the ground.

"Ow!"

Mello's blurry form swam in front of me. I caught a glimpse of blonde hair and concerned eyes before he blurred into one messy color. I blinked a couple times and Mello's image sharpened surrounded by tiny pinpricks of light. They winked in and out of focus, so I tried to ignore them and focus on Mello instead.

"You're supposed to catch it on your forehead," he told me reaching out his hand to pull me up.

"Yeah, I officially hate football," I said taking his hand and feeling my arm scream in protest as my shoulder was nearly ripped out of its socket. Despite not playing any sport of any kind in forever, and being so thin he could be considered anorexic, Mello was strong and had quite a kick. I was still seeing stars, and gripped Mello's long sleeve black shirt to steady myself.

I was still upset about the fact that he was taller than me now. We'd officially decided that he was the older one now, even though he acted way younger.

"Uh oh," Mello said looking behind me.

"What?"

I turned to find one of Wammy's assistants crossing the lawn. I exchanged nervous glances with Mello. Assistants _never_ brought good news. Ever. The last time I saw one of them it was because I was getting busted for driving a motorbike without being old enough to have a license. My defense: "I don't know how old I am, so I could be old enough!" had been rejected. I hate those guys.

"Maybe they'll turn away?" I offered hopefully, but no such luck. The assistant walked right up to us.

"Roger needs to see you, Mr. Keehl," he said. "No, not you Jeevas. Just Mr. Keehl."

"I don't even get a 'Mr.'?" I said annoyed.

Mello laughed nervously, but quickly stopped when the assistant looked at him. The assistant leaned down on me. I scowled up at him.

"I'd watch that mouth of yours, Jeevas. It'll get you into trouble one of these days."

I tightened my jaw and said nothing, because if I did, it definitely wouldn't have been polite and I'd had gotten in trouble. All I could do was watch as Mello got lead away into Wammy's house.

When he didn't return in a few minutes, I went up to his room to wait for him. I really didn't like outside that much. It was dirty, wet, and cold most of the time. Besides, I had no one to play with now. Mello would know where to find me.

Mello's room was almost the same as mine, except for all the books on his shelf and candy wrappers in and around the rubbish bin. Mello had a serious sweet tooth and probably had chocolate stashed somewhere in his room, but I couldn't find any of it.

I picked up one of the books on his desk and sat down to wait for him.

"Hostage negation?" I said looking at the title. That was a little darker than I'd been expecting from my friend. "What the hell, Mello..."

Of course that didn't stop me from reading it. It was actually pretty interesting, I guess, for a huge nonfiction book.

I could hear Mello coming long before he entered the room. Angry footsteps echoed through the halls along with shouts from Mello, and someone else's inaudible answers.

"LEAVE ME ALONE, NEAR!" he screamed as he wrenched open the door.

"Mello?" I stood up from where I had been sitting.

Mello's face was bright red and he was breathing hard, presumably from running down the hallway. He didn't even look at me. He just pulled a bag out from under his bag and beginning filling it with all of his stuff.

"What's going on, Mello?" I asked stepping forward. In the corner of my eye, I could see Near hovering awkwardly just outside Mello's room.

"Go away, Matt," he said.

That surprised me. Mello was usually ok with me waiting for him in his room. I stepped closer and squatted next to him. He wouldn't look at me and continued packing his bag. His long hair hid his eyes.

"Mello," I asked cautiously. I could sense that he was seriously pissed. Mello was like a bomb; I had to defuse him before he went nuclear. Judging by his attitude, I guessed that I had about a minute, at most.

Mello finished packing his bag and whipped around to face me. His eyes flashed with anger. Real anger; he wasn't just annoyed. I'd seen him this mad before a few times, but it had never been directed at me.

"I told you to get out."

The words stung me. Had I done something to him? I didn't think so. Mello was supposed to be my best friend and I was supposed to be his. He could, he did, tell me everything. It hurt me that he didn't trust me with whatever this was, but I didn't show it.

"Mello, whatever this is, tell me," I said. He was seriously scaring me. "We can fix this."

"You don't even know what you're saying. We can't just "fix this". Get out of my room. Now!" He shouted the last word.

I searched his face for any signs of caving, but his blue eyes were hard and I only saw hatred. I scared me more than I'd like to admit. A countdown started in my head. 10, 9, 8…

Mello angrily snatched up his bag and pushed his way towards the door.

"Out of the way, Near, before I make you,"

Near, apparently unfazed, shrugged and moved to the side.

Mello stalked out of the room.

I got up from the floor and ran after him. Even a moron, which I'm not, could see that he was leaving. I wasn't just going to walk out on me.

"Mello. Stop this," I said as I ran after him. He didn't slow down or acknowledge me in any way. He just kept walking down the hallway in the direction of the front door. I grabbed his wrist. He finally stopped to wrench it off of him.

"Leave me alone. I'm going and you're not stopping me." 7...6...5...

"Yes, I am," I retorted. "This is madness, Mello. Where do you even plan on going?"

Mello scowled and didn't answer my question. "Let me go. Don't think that I won't hit you." 4...3...2...

I faulted. That was the first time Mello had threatened me. Mello. The one person I actually cared about. Sure, he wasn't the nicest guy on the planet, but he didn't go around threatening his friends either. Something big must have happened to make him crack like this. What had happened?

"Mello—" I started again, but that's when the countdown got to 1. My time was up. I could almost see Mello physically snap. My speech was abruptly ended by a swift punch to the mouth. I felt my teeth break through the skin on my lip. My mouth was filled with the coppery taste. I brought my hand up to cover my mouth whimpering in pain.

Mello, once again, pried my fingers off of him and left me, still dazed, in the hallway. After a few seconds, I quieted myself, shook my head, and began chase again. Like hell one punch was going to stop me. It hurt more than anything sure, more emotionally than physically. Still, I wasn't going to give up just like that. I wasn't even mad at him. Mello and I could work everything out when I'd convinced him to stay.

Mello had made it to the garage by the time I caught up with him. He'd put on the motorbike helmet, somehow found the key I'd been looking for for months, and started up the bike.

"Out of the way!" he yelled at me over the engine. "I don't want to hit you, Matt!"

He kicked the bike into gear and started shakily advancing. I stood still for about 2 seconds. Then, I flung myself out of his way. Mello had no idea how drive a motorbike, and I didn't planning on dying anytime soon.

As I watched from on the ground, he sped past me and didn't even slow down as he approached the gate. Instead he barred straight into the metal bars. I was sure he's crash, but by some miracle the gates opened. I guessed that they weren't locked. Mello almost fell off the motorbike at the last minute regained balance and sped off down the road.

"What the hell just happened, Near?" I shouted nearly breaking his door off in the process of opening it. He hadn't been in Mello's room, so I'd torn though the house on my way to find his.

Near looked uninterested. "Regarding Mello?" he asked quietly.

"No, regarding the freaking weather. Yes! About Mello!"

Near looked down at the doll in his hand. He ran his finger over one of its button eyes in a circular motion for a second. I shifted my weight from foot to foot impatiently.

"You should have gone with him," he finally said.

I made a growling sound in the back of my throat. That was it. Why was everyone being so damn cryptic? I walked over to Near and sat next to him on the bed.

"Tell me," I said in an even tone. I was trying not to get mad at him, but it wasn't easy.

"Fine," Near said. "You know how L was working the Kira case?"

I nodded. "Vaguely."

"He's dead."

"Whoa! A little warning next time!" I said standing up. I hadn't known him that well, but L had been the closest thing I had had for a friend besides Mello. I was going to miss the little messages he sent me.

"So," Near continued. I swear, the kid's a robot. His lack of emotion was just creepy. "Wammy needs a replacement."

"Mello?" I guessed. "But why would that upset him?"

"Would you shut up so I can talk?" Near snapped. I opened my mouth to protest, but then thought better of it.

"Thank you. Roger, the new Wammy since Watari died too—"

"Ahh! What did I just say?"

"Do you want me to finish or not? As I was saying, Roger wanted Mello and me to work together because L didn't specify which one of us he wanted to be his successor."

"That makes sense, He was pretty young."

Near narrowed his eyes at me.

"Ok, ok, I'm shutting up," I said putting my hands up in surrender.

"I agreed to the idea—what?" he said noticing the look on my face. "I like Mello. He just doesn't like me. I agreed to the idea, but Mello said he couldn't work with me. After some argument, he said I could be L's successor, but he'd find a way to stop Kira himself. Then he left."

The significance of what Near said took a moment to sink in. So, Mello wasn't coming back. He'd left without a goodbye. He'd pretty much told me to piss off. I could feel lump form in my throat.

"Do you know where he's going?" I asked Near trying to swallow it down.

He shrugged. "No idea."

I didn't feel well. My head was spinning and my stomach twisted uncomfortably. I stood up from the bed causing everything to spin around me. "I think I'm going to be sick," I said clutching the bedpost.

Near looked at me with his huge dark eyes. It almost felt as if he was looking into my soul or something. It was unnerving.

"Matt."

"Yeah?" I asked.

"Don't beat yourself up about Mello. It wasn't your fault."

"Yeah, ok," I said. I wasn't going to listen to him though. I looked back to Near.

"Near?"

"Huh?"

"You said that I should have gone with him."

"What about it?"

"Why did you say that?" I tried to keep it together, but, in truth, I was dangerously close to breaking down.

Near considered the question for a moment. "I believe that Mello will spiral downwards without you. You're not only his rock; you're also his moral compass."

"Am I meant to be flattered or something?" I asked. My voice sounded half sarcastic half heartbroken. My cockiness was usually just a way to hide my other emotions like nervousness, fear, or embarrassment. I hated the fact I was doing it now. It hadn't even worked properly.

Near just gave me a look. "Fine. You want it in simple terms? Mello will get ten times worse without you."

"Yeah, ok, I get it." I said. I had to get out of there. I didn't want to be around people anymore. I needed to be somewhere where no one could hear me. My heart felt like it would explode if I kept on talking to Near. I had to go somewhere else. "I-I have to go."

Near didn't look happy, but he didn't press the issue.

I practically staggered out of his room, through the house, down my hallway, and into my room. I collapsed on to my bed. I felt a small sob escape my lips.

I wanted just to lie there forever. I wanted a way to go back in time and stop the last 24 hours from happening. I wanted Mello to come back. I wanted to get over the fact that he was gone. I wanted a lot of things.


	3. Level 3

**AN: Anyone who expects this to be a happy chapter, I'm sorry, but it's not. It is a necessary one though.**

" _It's just one guy,"_ I told myself a week after Mello had left. _"Get over it."_

It was ridiculous that I couldn't eat chocolate anymore or look at a football without thinking about him. I hated myself for not being able to move on. It was a very surreal experience to still be a Wammy's house, and not see Mello anywhere. I kept wanting to tell him something only to turn and find that he wasn't there. I went through a whole new bout of depression each time. After the fifth time it happened, I retreated to my room and barely talked to anyone else.

" _This is just freaking pathetic,"_ I thought angrily at myself as I lay on my bed. I wasn't like Mello had been that great anyway. He had been kind of annoying actually. He was always screwing stuff up. We'd had plenty of arguments over the years. I'd gotten beat on his account too. So why couldn't I let him go? I knew I should get used to not seeing him around anymore; he wasn't coming back. Mello made up his mind, there was no stopping him, but some absurd part of me still held out hope.

I kept having dreams that he'd come back. They weren't bad; what was bad was the waking up in an empty bed. Then I'd have nightmares.

Near came to visit me that first week. I was lying on my bed headphones on. I'd been listening to a lot of music lately to pass the time. Training had never really interested me, but now it just seemed pointless. I didn't go anymore.

"Well I never expected this," he said.

"What?" I snapped annoyed.

"I had thought that Mello would spiral, not you too. It seems that I was mistaken."

"I am not spiraling," I said defensively. It didn't even fool me. I was very clearly falling apart. I was so lonely. Nothing I used to do interested me. I hadn't played any sort of game in a week. That was a sign that something was very wrong.

"Well," Near continued. "I just thought that you would like to know: they found Mello's motorbike."

I sat up straight. "Is he ok?" I asked. A shimmering bubble of hope formed inside of me. It began to rise.

"I said they found his motorbike, not him. It was at an airport, so I think it's safe to say that Mello's ok and he's out of the country."

The bubble popped in my throat. My stomach dropped. "He's really gone then," I said. I felt dazed and dizzy, almost as if someone had pulled the floor out from under my feet. It made me want to throw up. I swung my legs over the side of my bed and put my head in my hands. I wanted to block out everything and just disappear myself. It all felt too overwhelming. Until then, I'd always had someone to fall back on, but now I was truly and utterly alone.

"I'm sorry, Matt," I heard Near say above me, but it didn't help.

* * *

A month after Mello's disappearance, I still hadn't gotten back to normal. My nightmares only got worse, to the point where they interfered with my sleep. I knew they weren't real, but try telling that to me when I was asleep.

Roger had taken all of the stuff out of Mello's room. It had been the conformation I'd hoped would never happen. I'd asked him if I could have it, because they were just going to throw it out. Roger had been surprisingly kind to me, and he'd even excused some of my absences, not that I really cared.

"Wammy?" I asked when he'd given me the box of Mello's old things. "Is it possible track down Mello? You can find him, right? It can't be hard for you. We're all detectives. We can get him back, right?" My voice caught, and I stared at him rather than continuing. This was my last hope. Maybe the adults could fix this.

Roger just looked sad. "Mail," he said using my real name. I hate it, because what kind of name is "Mail"? I avoided using it whenever possible. The only people who knew it were Roger, all those damn assistants, Near, and, of course, Mello. The fact that Roger had used it signified the seriousness of the situation.

"I could track down Mihael," there it was again: our proper names "but what good would it do? He left to fight crime in his own way. He doesn't want to be found, and wouldn't agree to coming back, so what's the point in aggravating ourselves and him. You know that we have a dropout rate."

" _Of .3%,"_ I thought bitterly. The only person I could really remember ever "dropping out" was B.

"The best thing to do is move on," Wammy finished.

He patted my shoulder and left me clutching the box. My grip on the cardboard tightend and I tried to bury the anger boiling in the the back of my throat.

I made it all the way to my room before I blew up. I threw the box on the ground as hard as I could. Its contents rose and spilled out of the top, clattering on the wooden floor.

I yelled in frustration. The adults were doing nothing. Nothing! Not one thing to help! And they could if they wanted to! They could find Mello and bring him back, probably within the week! Who cared if Mello didn't want to be found? Mello's judgment sucked! He was still a kid! He shouldn't be able to make decisions yet! The adults were supposed to solve the problem around here not just ignore them!

My mind, and I say this at the risk of sounding cliché, went blank. Logic and reason no longer existed. My hands seemed to move on their own, tearing books from my shelf, knocking over my desk, throwing everything around my room. The crashes around me drowned out my own screams.

After a while, my anger subsided enough for reasoning to return to my brain. Looking around, I could see my room was a complete mess. I sank down on my bed, which was missing all the blankets now. Was this how Mello felt all the time?

My anger gone, I suddenly felt very small, very weak, and very tired. I pulled my knees up to my chest.

" _Think,"_ I told myself. _"Your brain's the one good think about you. Use it."_

What did I know? Not much.

Could I go find Mello? Probably not. I was still a kid somewhere in the age range of 12-15. I had no money or transportation. I didn't even know how to drive a car. Most importantly, I had no idea where Mello had gone.

All I could do was sit and hope he'd contact me.

I sighed and turned off my light. The sooner I fell asleep, the sooner I forget that this ever happened.

I shivered alone in the dark. It was strange. I didn't know what to do with myself anymore. Mello had always kept my mind on something. Whether it was about keeping him away from Near, or just to tell him something interesting, he'd always been in the back of my mind. Without him, or anyone else to talk to, I was left with far too much time to think.

Near wasn't exactly helping. I'd become sort of experiment to him. He observed me constantly. I swear I saw him with a clipboard once or twice. I'd hate to see the kind of notes he was taking. Probably along the lines of "subject is still suffering from grief. Possibility of depression." Along with a bunch of mumbo jumbo that I pretended not to understand.

* * *

A year after Mello had ran away, I woke up in my bed with a splitting headache and no memory of how I got there. Near was sitting next to the bed staring at me. How long had he been there? Creepy.

"How long has this been going on?" he asked when he saw I was awake.

"What?" I asked confused.

Near frowned. "Don't pretend not to understand. I knew you weren't doing well, but I never expected this."

Oh, he'd found out.

I felt myself stiffen. Barriers went up all around my mind. They wouldn't let anything in. Not Near, not Wammy, not anyone. I'd give the appropriate answer to all of their questions. I'd hide and avoided. Hide and avoid and bottle everything. It had gotten me this far. Under all of my shields, the truth tried to hide in the back of mind.

I hadn't been dealing with Mello's disappearance in the best way possible. It was my fault. It had to be. I had no idea how he was doing because I couldn't find him. If I could have just done more to make him stay, he wouldn't be out there somewhere without anyone and probably no job or money, or dead. I didn't have a clue, and I couldn't even find one. It was my fault.

I felt sad all the time. Not like a violent outburst of tears, more like a heavy weight on my shoulders that I could never get rid of. No, maybe sad wasn't the word for it. Numb. I think that was a better way to describe it. I didn't talk to anyone go anywhere. I didn't eat most of the food I took. I couldn't. It just sat in my room until it got old and I threw it out. I'd wanted to forget. To forget everything that happened. I wanted to forget Mello, because he was just a reminder of my failure. When the detective couldn't find someone, you had to know they sucked at their job. I just wanted to stop feeling so numb all the time.

I wished that parts of my memories could just erase themselves. I didn't want to let everyone know how bad I was. It was weakness that I didn't need to be showing.

My head throbbed painfully.

"Can we do this another time?" I asked wincing. Avoid.

"Matt," Near said.

"Why do you care?" I asked angrily. Near had never shown an interest in my feeling before now.

Near frowned. "Because I don't have any friends either. I want you to be ok."

I rolled my eyes. Near didn't like people. Why would he care about me at all?

"Well, I'm fine," I said. Hide.

Near rolled his eyes. "Oh, yeah. Your fine. That's why you don't eat. That's why I found all those bottles hidden under your bed. That's why I found you unconscious and half dead last night."

It sounded much harsher when he said it like that.

"I don't want to talk about it," I said. Bottle.

"I understand," Near said. "But you need to. You have at least five different diagnosable things wrong with you."

"I'm fine. I'm handling it."

"No, what you are is in denial." Near looked sad. "I can't help you if you insist upon tearing yourself apart.."

"I don't want your help. This is my problem, not yours. I've already bothered you enough."

Near sighed. "Is this about Mello?"

"Don't be stupid." I shot back. "Of course it's not. I've done research on depression. An event can't cause it."

"But it can be a catalyst." Near countered. "You're not the only one who does research, Matt."

Well he did have me there. This wasn't about Mello per say, but he certainly did have a lot to do with it.

"Did you tell anyone?" I asked. I was starting to see that I wasn't getting out of this one. Not this time.

"Just Wammy."

Thank goodness for that. It was already embarrassing enough that I was so messed up; I didn't need everyone else to know it too. I could fix this. I could. I could fix everything. I just needed time.

"Get rid of everything," Near said. "You need to focus on something else. You're no use to Mello dead."

I felt a few of my shields break. Near had no reason to care, but he did. For some reason, he didn't see me as a failure. As a waste.

I wondered when Near had gotten so smart. He'd always seemed like a robot to me. When had he grown up so much? I felt even more like a failure. I needed someone younger than me to fix everything I'd messed up.

I gathered up all of my secrets; all the bottles of various pills and alcohol, my lighter, my knife, even the notebook full of stuff I'd written about everything that had happened in the last year. Near looked over my shoulder and regarded the stuff in my arms. All the alarms in my head screamed at me to hide it again. To get Near out of my room. To disappear. It took all my willpower to stand still.

" _Don't think I'm a freak,"_ I thought. _"Please, don't think I'm a freak."_

Near's face was solemn as he looked over my shoulder.

"We're getting rid of that," he said absolutely no judgement in his voice. Only clear orders. He wasn't mad, or upset, or anything. Maybe I was just a puzzle he needed to figure out. "Then you're going to go eat breakfast. Then you're going to snap out of it. Then you're going to start looking for Mello. Then you're going to find him and tell him how much of an idiot you were."

I didn't want to. I wanted to refuse and hide again, but this is what Near wanted. I was already gone, my life was already broken beyond repair, but Near didn't deserve to be pulled along with me. He should be happy. He was a good person. He shouldn't have to suffer because of me. His life was more valuable than mine. If this would make him happy, who was I to refuse him. It wasn't about me.

"We're also going to get you on medication," Near added. "Your serotonin and norepinephrine levels are clearly unbalanced."

It would have been better if he'd left that part out.

* * *

"Happy Birthday, Mello," I said at exactly 20:00 on December 13th two years after he'd gone. I was sitting in my room with all of his old stuff still in it. The room was cold and still. I was alone in the semi-dark.

I'd taken Near's advice and started Operation "Find Mello". Unfortunately it hadn't been going too well. Getting money hadn't been an issue. After a few weeks, I'd learned that all I had to do was hack into banks or run credit card scams and I could have all the money I wanted. I thought it was actually ridiculously easy. The government really should do a better job of protecting its money.

Surveillance wasn't any harder. Hacking cameras was even easier than hacking banks.

The problem was Mello himself. He'd seemed to have disappeared off the face of the planet. I had thought myself a reasonably good detective, but I couldn't find him anywhere. Not even at the airport where Near said that they had found his motorbike. All I knew was that he'd gotten on a plane and flown…somewhere. I had no idea what continent, let alone country he was in.

The only other thing I could do was keep up with the Kira case as much as I could, because I knew Mello was also interested in it. Apparently, Kira was could seemingly, magically kill you with just your name and face. His goal, as far as I could tell, was to kill all criminals in order to create a peaceful, new world.

After a far amount of research, I'd decided that whoever Kira happened to be was completely mental. His ideas seemed ludicrous, because you can't just kill everyone who opposes you. That doesn't make the world a better place. It just leaves you with a lot of bodies and terrorized people.

Kira was taking over the entire world. I would like to say that's why I cared, but it wasn't. I hated they guy's guts for a different reason. Yes it was bad he was some guy delusional enough to think he was a god, but more importantly, he'd killed one of my friends and made the other one leave forever.

I didn't blame myself as much as I used to anymore. I think I'd always know deep down that it hadn't really been my fault, but I'd been too upset to admit it. I hadn't felt good enough, so of course, everything was my fault.

Life didn't feel as grim now. It still wasn't perfect, but it definitely was still worth living. Near and I talked more now, so I wasn't alone all the time, I played video games in my free time, but, most importantly, I had something to focus on: Finding Mello.

If I could go back to the day Mello left, I would do it in a heartbeat. I'd do anything to keep him from leaving. I'd tackle him off the motorbike, lock him in a closet, anything really. There were a million solutions looking back on it. I hadn't noticed them at the time, and it was too late now.

Near, who apparently had taken on the role of my councilor for reasons unknown, told me that I had to start accepting things, so I'd accepted the fact that I hadn't gotten over Mello yet. It was really annoying. I wish I could, but I just couldn't. I often screamed at myself just to let go, but he was the only thing I couldn't shake off. It felt almost as if half of me was gone.

It was really aggravating for me, because I don't even remember liking Mello _that_ much. I guess I didn't realize how much I needed him until he was gone. I cursed myself for it.

I took out my lighter. I seemed to be addicted to smoking, no, Wammy was not pleased but it was a hell of a lot better than I had been last year, so Wammy couldn't complain.

"Make a wish, Mello," I said blowing out the lighter.

I took a chocolate bar out of my jacket pocket. It wasn't exactly cake, but it'd have to do.

" _I wonder why they tell us our birthdays but not our ages,"_ I thought idly as I ate the candy.

* * *

There was a knock on my door four years after Mello left.

"Hey, Near," I said as I opened the door.

He came in clutching a suitcase in one hand. It was almost as big as him and looked strangely out of place. "I'm off now."

"I don't suppose you'll tell me where?" I asked playfully.

"For the millionth time, no," Near said. Knowing him, he'd counted each time that I asked him. That meant that I'd been asking a lot I guess. "You know I can't. That's a secret."

I nodded. "Yeah, I know."

You never could tell with Wammy. Sometimes, no one could know about what mission who was on, or at other times, it was totally ok just to go outside and scream the finer details to anybody who happened to near you.

"Well, good luck out there," I said reaching out my hand. "Don't get killed."

"You neither," he said taking my hand and shaking it. I always hated doing handshakes because I was left-handed and had to awkwardly grip people's' hands with my right. I guess Near deserved that much that much after everything I'd put him through. He'd been a good friend to me.

"This is goodbye then," Near said. He wouldn't be able to contact me anymore. The only chance of us ever meeting again was if Wammy somehow got a hold of both of us for a mission or if we just bumped into each other on the street one day. Not likely.

"Yeah," I said. "Weird, right? We've lived here since forever."

"Can I offer you a piece of advice?" he asked.

Wow, Near must really like me. He rarely spoke to anyone else, let alone volunteer information. Oh yeah, and the doll thing? Not a phase. He still plays with them. Not that I could talk; I was neck deep in video games.

"Sure, what is it?" I asked.

"Get out of here. You're too old for Wammy's house. Find Mello."

My smile faded at Mello's name. My childhood friend wasn't coming back. I knew that now. I'd given up on him. I'd become one of the best hackers in existence, but I still couldn't locate him. I really thought that he must be dead at this point. I'd finally managed to accept that I wasn't going to ever see him again. Why did Near have to bring it up now. He knew how I felt about it. I just wanted to live my life. I didn't want to alway be waiting around for him.

I forced the smile back on my face. I didn't want my final goodbye to Near to be me just crying about Mello.

"Yeah. You're right. I'll do that." I said.

Near nodded. "That was an awful lie. Take care, Matt," he said before getting up and leaving me, once again, in an empty room.


	4. Level 4

Five and a half years after Mello's disappearance I was still at Wammy's house. I was too old for it, I knew. I had to be at least 18 by now. I knew I should leave, but I didn't want to. There was nothing out there for me out there. I briefly wondered if my depression was coming back despite my meds, but decided that I was just being realistic. I could just live my whole life at Wammy's house. I could get new video games shipped to me and get one of those online jobs.

Would Wammy mind? Probably, but he hadn't been happy with me for a long time. Apparently I didn't "apply myself" enough. It was true; I didn't really care about training. Maybe I could just move down into the basement and live there. No one would even notice me. It wouldn't be much of a change from my current arrangement of staying in my room 20 out of the 24 hours in the day.

I laughed at the thought of the two young boys who'd promised each other that, one day, they'd get out and fight crime together. Promises had been broken, tempers flared, and the older one had left before it was his time leaving the younger one to endure five and a half years of grief, depression, alcoholism, whatever the correct term for smoking was, and a whole lot of heartache.

Nope, the outside world wasn't for me anymore.

That morning I was eating breakfast and watching the news. Normally, I would be watching something else. Anime, cooking shows, sitcoms, anything other than the news; the news just depressed me, but someone had hidden the remote and I was too lazy to get up and change the channel. I suppose I _could_ have eaten in silence, but I have this weird thing where I can't eat without some kind of noise playing. Besides, eating only took a few minutes.

On the news, some terrorist was attacking the president of America…I think. Maybe he was blackmailing him. I wasn't really paying attention.

"…little is known about the perpetrator except that he is affiliated with the mafia and possibly Kira…" I caught as I munched on my cereal.

" _Great, more Kira stuff,"_ I thought. I was sick of the whole Kira thing, At this point I didn't care who caught the guy; I just wanted him to be stopped.

Annoyed, I probably would have actually gotten up and changed the channel except for the next words the reporter said.

"…we do have a picture of the perpetrator." I paused from where I had stood up, cereal bowl in hand. This was serious. Pictures we almost like death warrants in this day and age, even without a name. The US must be desperate to post a photo of this guy. That was pretty shady. They were basically saying "Kira, kill this guy!"

The news reporter continued. "If anyone can identify him, please call the following number…"

A picture of a young man took up the screen. It looked as if it had been taken off a security camera. He was dressed entirely in black leather and had a thin, pale face with chin length blonde hair and tangled bangs. His blue eyes flashed with anger as if saying _"How dare you take my picture."_.

My cereal bowl hit the floor. I knew that face. It was Mello. Mello! In America! Still fighting Kira! He was older, but it was still definitely him. He'd been alive the whole time.

I stared at the picture for a good few seconds, completely frozen. He was real. All those years of trying to come to terms with the fact that I'd never see him again, and there he was. I almost felt like Kira had found out my name and given me a heart attack.

I blinked and immediately felt my body jump into action. My legs seemed to move of their own accord, carrying me recklessly down the hallway.

I burst into my room and grabbed my laptop. _"I can't believe it!"_ I thought as a haphazardly typed. _"All those years of searching and I finally see him on the damn news."_ My fingers flew across the keyboard. Fifteen minutes was all the time it took to get all the information I needed. It'd been here the whole time, and I'd been too stupid to notice it. I'd have to punish myself for that later…I'm not a house elf! I just think like one sometimes.

" _You idiot, Mello,"_ I thought as I shoved my laptop in my bag along with all my money and a few other items _. "What have you done now?"_

"I'm going out!" I screamed up into the main room as I grabbed my boots from the hall closet and hopped into them.

"Where are you going?" asked one of the kids.

"America!" I didn't elaborate. I grabbed my vest/jacket thing, I don't know; it was puffy and I like puffy things, and slammed the door.

It didn't occur to me then, but it was the last time I'd ever see Wammy's house.

The wait in the airport was agonizing. So was the plane trip. There had been debate on whether I could leave. After presenting the correct papers, forged because I didn't have the time to get real ones, I still had no plane ticket. The flight to America was booked solid. After waiting around the airport for a couple hours, I got news that someone had cancelled their trip last minute and there was an extra ticket if I wanted to buy it.

I quickly did and hoped on the plane. It was 18 hours of pure torture. During it, I learned two very important things:

1\. I hate flying. Seriously, It's awful. I kept feeling like the plane would crash or I'd get sucked out the window or something. I'd rarely been outside Wammy's house, let alone on a plane. The sheer amount of people was overwhelming. I don't think I did a good job talking to any of them. Couple that with flying though the air at breakneck speed? Yeah, not pleasant. Did you know there's a website where you can listen to the last moments of people who die in plane crashes? I did, and I can tell you, it did _not_ help me relax.

2\. People on planes hate me. Through no fault of their own; I can be pretty annoying when I want to be. Me being scared and worried out of mind didn't help the situation either. I couldn't stop bouncing around in my seat. I wished I could pace around like I did in the airport.

When the plane landed, I practically ran out of the airport with many cries of "Sir, please slow down!" after me.

I got a taxi driver to drive me within a mile of the building Mello was currently holding up some guys in. Thanks to my laptop and some quick hacking I was able to know where Mello was at all times. I felt like an idiot for not finding him before now. There was so much information now. Of course, it wasn't for the public, but it was still there.

There wasn't anyone around the building. Everyone must have all thought it was too dangerous to be near an angry Mello. I could see a point to that. The driver didn't look happy to be so close to a potential crime scene and left quickly after dropping me off.

Looking back on it, my plan was pretty stupid. Just walk into buildings where everyone had guns and were wearing gas masks? Yeah, that sounds like a great idea! Normally, I had good judgment, but I guess I just wasn't feeling it today. I also had no idea how Mello would react. We hadn't parted on the friendliest of terms, and it'd had been while since we'd seen each other. Maybe he wouldn't remember me at all or not recognize me. I half expect him to shoot me on principle.

But did Stupid!me listen to logic? Nope! Stupid!me ran across the deserted parking lot towards the building.

As it turns out, I never got to go into the building. Not while it was standing anyway. I was still several meters away from it when it exploded; it quite literally blew up in my face.

The blast sent me diving to the ground for cover. The knee of my jeans split. I felt gravel scrape its way into my flesh, but luckily, I had been far enough from the explosion that was the only injury I got. I just got some small debris thrown on top of me. The building hadn't been so lucky. It had been reduced to broken concrete, wood, pipes, and wires everywhere. Some of it was on fire from the blast.

"Mello!" I screamed. My heart caught in my throat. It was unlikely that anyone could have survived the explosion. It seemed as if fate was laughing at me. Finally tell me where Mello was but make it impossible for me to see him again.

I ran forward and jumped into the wreckage. Again, not my brightest moment. Shards of everything were flung everywhere. Glass glittered on the floor like diamonds. The whole place smelled like smoke and cooked pork. I about threw up when I realized that the smell was coming from the bodies scattered around the demolished building.

I swallowed hard and looked around.

"Mello?" I called. No answer.

I began frantically searching the buildings for survivors. People strewn about like so many paper dolls thrown down by an angry child, but none of them looked like Mello. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of a figure off from the rest.

"Mello," my voice caught painfully as I saw the figure lying on the floor of a ruined set of stairs that could only be him.

I ran to him and pulled the demolished gas mask off of him. It seemed to have protected him somewhat from the explosion. Still, on half of his face was uninjured. The other half looked as if it had been burned off. I touched it lightly and quickly pulled my hand back rubbing it on my pants. It was hot. Far too hot. I looked down at my hand. It had flecks of Mello's blackened skin clinging to it.

My heart jolted at the sight of it. I wanted to scream at Mello for being so dumb. I wanted to break down, let my vision fade to black, to wake back up to find my hands bruised and bloody the building even more demolished than before. I wanted to cry because I hadn't been smart enough to save Mello.

I couldn't do any of that though. I had to keep it together. I had to clear my mind and just focus on the problem.

"Ok," I said out loud. "I need to find out it you're alive first. If you are, I'll call an ambulance. If you're not, I'll call one anyway. Some one else could be alive."

I very carefully put my hand over Mello's mouth and nose checking for breath. I winced as my hand made contact with his hot skin. It felt like my hand was burning up too, but I ignored the pain and kept it there. After a tense moment, I felt a small exhale against my palm. Mello was still alive.

I sighed in relief and felt my heartbeat slow slightly.

" _Stick to the plan,"_ I reminded myself.

I pulled out my cell phone.

"Um, what's the number in America?" I asked the unconscious Mello. My mind was blanking, which was not helpful at all. "It's 9 something. Not 999 though…911! That's it." I was never so glad that my phone was one of those international ones. I'd be screwed otherwise. I guess it _did_ pay to paranoid and want your cell phone to work even if you were kidnapped and taken out of the country. Take that Wammy!

"Hello, this is 911. What is your emergency?" someone said on the other end of the phone.

"I need an ambulance."

After giving our location, I waited with Mello. I hoped he'd be ok, but I wasn't a doctor. I had no idea about whether he'd be alright or not.

" _He's actually here,"_ I told myself. _"I actually found him."_ I wasn't a robot; I had emotions, and right now, I was giddy with excitement. Well, that and very worried.

As I waited for the paramedics to arrive, I noticed something clutched in Mello's hand. It was a detonator.

So, that meant that Mello had done this. He was definitely more dangerous than when he was a kid. Now when he got mad, he blew up buildings. I'd always referred to his outburst as "blowing up", but it was much more literal now. It was actually kind of funny.

I took the detonator out of his hand and threw it as far away as possible. There was no way I was going to let Mello accused of murder even if he did do it. Right now, the important thing was him staying alive.

The plus side to all this? I got to ride in an ambulance. I was pushed off to the side and watched as the paramedics put all these tubes in Mello's arms and gave him one of those oxygen mask things while yelling medical mumbo jumbo.

After they seemed satisfied that they had drugged Mello up enough, things calmed down a little bit. I wished I could have waved out the window on the back, but the ambulance was moving too fast for me to safely get up from where I was sitting next to Mello... I was also kind of concerned about his health.

When we arrived at the hospital, Mello was carted away on a roll-y bed thing into an emergency ward while I was left to fill out his paperwork.

I was doomed from the first question. Patient name: _. What was I supposed to put? Mello? That wasn't really his name, but that's what I called him. Mihael Keehl? That was his real name, but names held tremendous power now because of Kira. I wasn't going to write that down. Did Mello have an alias he was going by now? In the end I just left everything blank and said that I was too traumatized to think straight.

"Are you related to him though?" a nurse asked.

"Yes," I said decisively. Mello had no parents, no siblings, and no friends. I guessed that I was all he had, because he's just blown up everyone he knew. "Can I go see him now?"

"Not yet. He's still unstable. We'll let you know when you can visit him."

"Ok, I'll just…" I glanced around the room for a second "wait here…"

I sat down in a chair in the waiting room and pulled out my laptop. I really wanted to go see Mello, like a lot, but I couldn't. I wasted a couple hours playing online games instead, but my heart wasn't in it. My palm still felt like it on fire from touching Mello's burns. If it hurt this bad for me, I couldn't even imagine what it must feel like for him.

After a while, a nurse stuck her head in the room. "Mr. um…there's no last name. Matt?"

I took off my headphones. "Yeah, that's me."

"You didn't fill this out very well," she said gesturing to the sheet.

"Trauma."

The nurse looked unconvinced, but she checked the sheet again. "You'll need to fill it out as soon as you recover. Your, um, friend?"

"Close enough," I said. The word "friend" didn't really seem to fit Mello. He'd been my best friend, but he'd been missing for so long. Did he even remember me? "He's my cousin." I added. "Can I go see him now?"

"Yes," said the nurse. "He's recovering in room 14B."

"Ok, thanks!" I shoved my laptop into my bag and left the confused nurse still standing in the waiting room.

Mello was mostly bandages. He was still unconscious in the hospital bed wearing one of those white and blue gowns. He was propped up against his headboard, which I thought was kind of strange, but then again, I'm not a doctor. What little of his face I could see was pale, but his breathing was calm. He had more tubes coming out of his arms. A monitor beeped out a steady rhythm next to his bed. A different nurse was in his room.

"Slow down there, young man," she said seeing my red face and ragged breathing. "He's fine."

"Oh thank God," I said crossing over to sit next to Mello. I wasn't really particularity religious, not like Mello, but there seemed to be no equivalent expression. I wasn't going to start thanking science.

"Is he going to wake up soon?" I asked the nurse.

She shrugged. "The sedative we game should have worn off and he's stable. He's just tired. He'll wake up when he's ready."

She didn't seem to be concerned about it, so I wasn't either. After a few minutes, the nurse said she had to go, but they'd be back in 24 hours to reevaluate Mello's burns, whatever that meant.

After she left, I turned my attention back to Mello. He still hadn't woken up. I scooted the chair by his bed closer to him so I could rest my chin on his bed while still sitting down.

I studied Mello's face. He'd gotten a lot older, but he still looked relatively the same right down to his hair cut. His face seemed to have lost some of its roundness, but that seemed to be the only change. It made me happy. Maybe his personality hadn't changed either. I hoped so. We could just go back to who we were 5 and a half years ago. Mello could be my friend again, and we could forget that the whole event had even happened.

"You have idea how much trouble you caused me," I said to him after a few minutes. He never would. I didn't want him to. I'd been pretty messed up a few years ago. I didn't want anyone to see what I had been like and what I'd done. Ever. Especially Mello.

"So, I flew here to see you," I continued. "And I've decided that I hate planes. They're like metal tubes that should fall even though they don't. They also have no Wi-Fi."

Mello didn't respond. He couldn't hear me. He didn't even know I was there. I sighed. We could continue the conversation another time.

I yawned. I hadn't slept much on the plane and I had serious jet lag. It was some early, early time in the morning now. I'd been stressed out all day. Now that I knew that Mello was going to be ok, I felt completely drained, but better than I had in years. Maybe I could just rest my eyes for a minute. Just a minute, and then I'd get up and do important stuff. What that entailed, I wasn't really sure, but I was too tired to think about it. I laid my face on Mello's bed and passed out.


	5. Level 5

Mello still wasn't awake the next morning. He hadn't moved at all. I began to worry he was in a coma, but the nurse who brought me breakfast, which I had to pay for by the way, said that he was fine. That they would know if he was in a coma. Yes, she was sure. She had a medical degree; she'd know. My "cousin" was fine.

I was munching on toast and looking up the best way to get someone out of a coma, just in case the nurse had been wrong, when Mello started to stir. That was good, because there seemed to be no cure for comatose people.

I almost threw my laptop across the room in excitement.

"Nnn," Mello groaned softly and pulled a hand up to cover his one remaining eye.

"Hey," I said scooting even closer to him in my chair. "Mello?"

He slowly removed his hand from his face. He looked confused. For some reason I found myself think about a picture I'd seen online a few months back: When an anime character gets injured, their cuteness factor is raised by 50%. I shook myself mentally, and reminded myself that Mello wasn't an anime character. I couldn't believe that he was right there. After being gone for so long, I'd almost expected him to disappear every time I looked away from him.

"Matt?" he croaked. His voice was quiet and sounded blown out. His forehead creased. "What are you doing here?"

Yes! Progress! I couldn't help smile; he hadn't forgotten me.

"I came to visit you," I said. The way I phrased it, the last five years could have never happened. I could have still been Mello's friend who lived five minutes away. It didn't even begin to cover what I was doing there, but I thought that it was best to start off simple sentences just in case Mello had lost a few brain cells in the explosion.

Mello still looked confused. "Your hair's red," he simply stated.

I was incredulous. We hadn't seen each other in five and a half years, and his biggest concern was my hair color? Of all the small, insignificant things he could have fixated on, he'd chosen my hair. It made me almost feel like laughing.

"Um, yeah," I said. "It's been red for a few years now."

"I like it…" Mello said sleepily.

"Thanks," I said a little unsure. Mello didn't seem to be grasping much of what was going on. He was probably still drugged up.

Mello tried to smile, but immediately winced. "It hurts," he complained.

I'm not going to lie, that tugged at my heart a little. "I'm sorry," I said.

Mello frowned, apparently not happy with that answer.

"Why can't I move?"

"You're in the hospital."

"But I'm not sick," Mello said confused. "I'm not sick, Matt. I have to go."

Mello didn't look like he'd be able to stand up, let alone go anywhere.

"Where do you have to go?" I asked.

"I have to get the Death Note."

I wasn't sure what he was talking about, but a "Death Note" didn't sound like a real thing.

Mello reached out his left hand, the one that wasn't in a cast, and took my hand. He seemed to be desperately trying to tell me something. "Have to get the Death Note," he whispered. He seemed to be falling back asleep. "Beat Near," he added.

He closed his eyes, and just like that, he was out again.

"Mello?" I shook his shoulder, but he didn't wake up. "What does that mean?"

Mello didn't respond.

His last words troubled me greatly. He'd been locked in an epic stalemate with Near since forever. Wait. Did Near know about Mello? Why didn't he tell me? He knew I was looking for him. I shook my head. I was getting ahead of myself. I was going to find Near and find out what he knew before I started jumping to conclusions.

I looked back at Mello. The sight of him made me pause. Until now, I'd been pretty much operating on touch and go, spinning my way through life with abandon. I couldn't do that anymore. I had Mello back. I had to be there for him, because he was in far worse condition than me. One of us had to be the level headed one.

I was so relieved that Mello was ok and that he didn't hate me. I hadn't known if I'd ever see him again, but now, here he was. He felt almost too real. I was transported back into my 11-year-old body for a second. I felt like a little kid again. The world, Kira, everything didn't seem as overwhelming anymore. I had someone to fall back on.

I looked at Mello's hand which was still holding mine. It felt completely alien and so familiar at the same time. I realized that that Mello had grown up, probably a lot more than me, as well.

" _Why didn't I go with you?"_ I thought. At least we would have had each other. Near had said I was Mello's moral compass. If I'd stayed with him, I might have been able to avoid all this. Mello wouldn't be sitting in the hospital unable to get up. I shuddered to think what would have happened if I'd just been a few hours later in finding him. If I'd gone with him, would I have been able talked him out of blowing up the building? Would that have even been an option? Would I have been there too? Would I have died? I would never know.

It was so mental that one small choice could have potential changed so many lives. I guess that's the butterfly effect for you.

Well, I wasn't going to make the same mistake twice. Whatever Mello was doing, I'd stand by him. He was still my best friend.

A few years ago, I would have screamed at him. "Why did you leave me?" "Do you know how much you hurt me?" "I hate you!". Now I didn't care anymore. I felt weak for being so quick to forgive, but I just didn't care anymore. I liked Mello. I was glad that he was ok, and that I'd found him. I wasn't going to pretend any different. Neither of us could have known the repercussions back then. We'd been kids trying to the best we could in impossible circumstances. I couldn't stay mad at Mello for something he'd done five and a half years ago, especially since I'd just flown thousands of miles to see him. To yell at him now would just be stupid. I wasn't going to risk losing him again.

There wasn't much for me to do in the hospital. I couldn't get up and walk around, because Mello still had my hand and wouldn't let go of it. I didn't have the heart to wrench it out of his grasp.

I managed to get out my laptop. It was a nightmare, but I was finally able to remove all the information the American government had on Mello with one hand. It took hours so don't be impressed. Every time I erased something, it lead to another site where they had more info on Mello.

" _You're a really bad detective,"_ I told myself. I was. I'd been looking for information like this for years. It had been like trying to find a certain book without knowing the title or the author in a library of every book ever printed.

The most interesting thing I found was Mello's birth record. He was born in 1989 in Winchester. That would make him 19 years old.

I also learned from various records, that he was blood type A. He was 171 cm. Dammit! He was taller than me. He'd become affiliated with Rod Ross, a leading Mafiosi, in 2006 and had been doing generally bad stuff ever since. There were details, but I didn't go into them. I didn't want to.

After wiped all the information, I cleared my history. I knew that everything I'd just done was untraceable, it wouldn't show up on my history, but I did it anyway. It's a bad habit I have. I clear my history at least three times a day, even if it's just games or anime. It's always a pain when I want to go look something up later, but it's better to be safe than sorry. Most of my favorite websites were memorized anyway.

Satisfied that no one would be able to identify Mello if they came looking for him, I put my laptop away. I knew I'd just caused a lot of problems for anyone, especially the hospital, if they want to get his medical records or something, but I could always make an alias for Mello. Besides, some annoyed doctors beat the police and/or the mafia coming to arrest, kidnap, and/or kill Mello.

I yawned. The times in America were screwed up. It was probably still night in England, and even if it _wasn't_ it should be. I was tired. I rested my head on Mello's bed again and fell asleep again.

* * *

I woke to find a doctor shaking me.

"Excuse me, Mr." she said. "We thought you'd like to know your cousin's situation. We also want to know if you're planning on staying in the hospital while he recovers."

I yawned and stretched. I'd been slumped over the bed while I slept and could hear my bones popping back into place.

"I guess so," I said.

"So do you want to call someone then to tell them you won't home then?" she asked patiently. I realized that she thought that I had a home, and I hadn't told anyone there about Mello.

"Nah," I said. "I live in Winchester."

"England?" the doctor asked. She seemed surprised.

I nodded. "Besides the only person I would call is right here now."

"You really seem to care for him a lot." The doctor said sadly. She looked at my hand, which Mello still was holding. I suddenly felt uncomfortable, but then realized that the doctor was probably used to it.

"Yeah," I said. I guess I really did. It sounded weird in my head. I'd been so used to being alone.

The doctor nodded, but she still looked sad. "Well, you won't be able to take him home for a while. You should rent an apartment somewhere close." I wondered if I reminded her of her son or something, because I was pretty sure that this wasn't part of the whole doctor thing. This seemed more like life advice. "This will take time."

"I can't just put my life on hold," I said.

"You might have to. Your cousin was seriously injured. He has second degree burns over half of his face and right side of his upper body. They will take months before they heal completely. Three of his ribs are cracked, he's suffered a concussion, his arm is broken, and he had numerous small lacerations all over him."

I knew she was trying to tone down her doctor speak for my benefit, but I didn't really help. Having Mello's injuries described to me in such a clean cut way made me feel slightly sick.

"He's going to be alright though?"

"He'll have scarring from the burns, but other than that, he's expected to make a full recovery."

I felt only slightly better.

"You say you don't know what happened to him?" The doctor asked.

She knew. She had to know. How could she not know? The explosion had been so close to the hospital. How else could have Mello gotten so injured? She was only asking out of respect.

I wanted to tell her, but I couldn't.

"Yeah, I found him like this," I said. It technically wasn't a lie. The doctor didn't look happy.

"Maybe he'll tell you when he wakes up," I said. I couldn't tell her anything. If Mello wanted to, he could, but it definitely wasn't my place to go around spilling all his secrets.

The doctor sighed, but she didn't press the issue. "I have to go now. I'll be back in a few hours to reassess his burns."

With that, the doctor left us.

I looked at Mello. He'd gotten himself into a real mess now. This was going to take months to fix. Way to go, Mello.

It took Mello a few hours to wake up. I was on my laptop, as always, playing games with my headphones on. I felt his fingers move in mine. After a second, they tightened their grip.

"Matt?"

I took the headphones off to find Mello and blinking blearily at me. He looked much more alert then last night. "What are you doing here?" he trailed off.

He didn't seem to remember last night's conversation.

"I came to see you," I repeated. Maybe he was more damaged than I realized.

"What's the last thing you remember?" I asked.

"Getting blown up."

I smiled. It was good to see Mello's sense of humor was still intact.

"You're really lucky you're not deaf," I said.

Mello shifted uncomfortably in his bed. "Yeah, I'm lucky."

I found myself saying "Shut up, Mello," just like I had all those times years ago. We'd fallen into conversation as if he'd never left and it was giving me a strange case of Déjà vu.

"My head hurts," he continued. "Why am I all bandaged up?"

With a sinking feeling, I realized that Mello and I really were repeating last night's conversation. I hoped he wouldn't try to leave again to find his Death Note.

"You were burned in the explosion," I said.

Mello frowned. His long hair fell in his eyes and he let out a small puff of air making his bangs flutter

"How'd you find me?" he asked.

I almost smiled. The conversation was finally starting to change. I considered giving him the long version. You know? The whole Operation "Find Mello" and all the years of searching, but I decided against it. I didn't want Mello to get upset or anything, and besides, I don't think I could have told him without breaking down myself.

"You were on the news," I said.

"So you got on a plane to come and see me?" Mello asked in disbelief.

"Well yeah." Now it just sounded embarrassing when he said it like that. I guessed that I was just as freaking pathetic as I had been back when he left. Oh, well. Old habits die hard.

Mello let out a small laugh. "I never thought I'd see you again."

"Tell me about it," I grumbled. "Why did you leave anyway?" Mello's happy expression instantly faded. The hand that had been holding mine let go. Mello didn't say anything for a while. He looked dangerously close to breaking down.

" _Crap,"_ I thought. I hadn't realized what I was saying. For years, I'd been wondering what had been going on in Mello's mind, and it had just slipped out.

"I'm sorry," Mello finally said.

That wasn't the response I was expecting. Not only did it not answer my question, I had been Mello to deny that he'd done any such thing. Maybe he would refuse to talk about it like last time or he would just yell at me angrily. I didn't expect him to start crying.

"No, it's ok," I said. "You don't have to—"

"I'm sorry," Mello cut me off. "I'm sorry. I was so close. I was so close. I'd tell myself that. I was almost there. I could do this by myself. I didn't need anyone. You didn't want me around. No one wanted me around. I was alone. I needed to catch Kira. People would finally see me as worthy. I wouldn't be second best, and second best, and second best."

His eyes flashed with anger. He looked back at me, and the ager seemed to beak. He was left looking even smaller and sadder than before. I hoped he was done, but he kept on talking.

"I wanted to come back and get you, but you already hated me, because who could love me? I'd never been able to do anything right. You knew I wasn't good enough. I wanted to come back. But you hated me. How could you not? I left you alone. I'm bad. Why would I go somewhere where no one wanted me around? I could do this by myself. I'I just wanted to show I could do it. I could do this by myself. Who would want me around? I'm sorry you had to find me. You should go. I'll get out of here as soon as I can. You'll never have to see me again. I'm bad. I know that."

He continued on with a rambling and confusing explanation of where he'd been for the last five and a half years that would have been impossible for me to follow if I hadn't looked up all that information on him earlier. He repeated himself most of the time and kept circling back to that he was sorry. He was alone. No one wanted him around.

The hand that had been holding mine, tugged at his hair.

In short, if you're interested, Mello'd done a lot of stuff and blamed himself for all of it, but had been too scared to ask for help. He'd convinced himself that everyone hated him, even if he didn't show it. The emotional side of his story actually reminded me eerily of me a couple years ago back when I was going through the worst of my depression.

After finishing his jumbled story, Mello kept on talking. He kept blaming himself for everything that had happened He kept saying he wasn't worthy to be saved and I should have just let him die because he could never right what he'd done.

I was hard for me to sit there and listen to him. Mello was my best friend. His pain was mine too, and he was clearly miserable just sitting there talking so fast it was hard for me to understand him. His voice sometimes cut off in a high pitch little sob, like he couldn't control it anymore. He'd move his lips, but no comprehensible sound would come out for a few seconds. Then, all of a sudden, his voice would be back and he'd keep on talking. It was almost as if Mello hadn't talked to anyone in years, and now a dam had burst inside of him. He'd bottled his emotion for far too long, and this was his explosion. Mello couldn't stop until it was over.

I understood that far too well. I'd been so alone. I'd thought that I wasn't worth anything either. I knew how hard it was, even to just open up to someone.

I stood up from the chair I'd been sitting in and, before Mello could react, bent down and wrapped my arms around him. I needed to show him that at least one person cared about him. I couldn't hug all of him because of all his bandages and cast and he still had a bunch of tubes stuck in his arms, and I didn't want to pull anything out accidently, but I wanted him to know that I did care about him. I knew Mello's greatest fear had always been that he'd never be good enough. I wanted him to know that it wasn't true.

I heard a sharp intake of breath from Mello, but it didn't sound like he was in any pain. I think he was just surprised. His face was pressed against my neck and I could feel it getting wet, but I didn't care. It effectively shut him up.

"It's ok," I whispered as I let Mello cry against me. I wasn't sure if I was telling him or trying to convince myself. It only seemed to make Mello cry harder. "It's fine. I don't care." I kept trying to calm him down, but it didn't seem to working. "I don't hate you, and I'd never leave you to die. It's ok. It's going to be ok."

I was out of practice, and I knew how to deal with angry Mello, not crying Mello, but I kept trying anyway.

I patted his head. My fingers curled into his hair, fixing all the tangles he'd put in it. His head seemed to lean into my hand. It must have been helping him, so I didn't stop.

" _I guess I'll just have to wait it out,"_ I thought. I didn't mind. I was nice for me as well, but I couldn't cry too. Not now anyway.

Mello eventually quieted down and just lay silently against me, his head still resting against my neck.

"Are you ok?" I asked cautiously.

Mello sniffed and pulled his head off of my neck. "Yeah," he said shakily.

I sat back down in my chair.

"So, um, does that happen a lot?" I asked in a miserable effort to get him to laugh, but, in truth, I didn't know how he'd really been doing. Maybe he cried everything now. Hell, I didn't know.

Fortunately for me, Mello thought it was funny. He laughed a little bit anyway. "No."

"Near was right," I said after a moment. "You do spiral without me."

"Shut up, Matt. I do not spiral."

I laughed. "That's what _I_ said about me when he said that." I'd been wrong. I was pretty sure Mello was too.

"Near sucks," Mello said quietly.

For some reason, I found that really funny. It wasn't true; Near had been a good friend to me. It was probably the way Mello said it. He sounded like a little kid who had been utterly defeated by the world around him. I couldn't stop laughing even though it felt like my face was going to split.

"It wasn't that funny!" Mello said. It really wasn't, but my brain was desperately trying to lighten the mood. I guess Mello's was too, because, after a while, he started laughing too.


	6. Level 6

Mello's recovery was slow. He, of course, wanted to leave as soon as possible but was told that he was too injured to leave.

They tried to explain the situation to me using something called the rules of nine, which I'd never heard of. As far as I understood, the rules were as follows:

Different parts of the body count for different percentages.

Those percentages told the doctors how best to care for Mello.

They also dictated how long he stayed in the hospital.

Mello's percentage was roughly 20%.

He'd be in the hospital one day for every percentage.

That meant he'd be in the hospital for 20 days.

I, in turn, explained it Mello.

"20 days?" he shouted.

"That's what they say," I said.

"20 days!" Mello repeated more angrily then before.

I winced. Mello was still too injured to leave, and I think he knew it too, but he hated waiting.

"That's what they say."

"I can't wait 20 days!" Mello declared. He was currently sitting in bed, so heavily bandaged that I couldn't see most of him. His lower arm was stiff within his cast, only the tip of his fingers poking out. His other arm had an IV sticking out it and a clear tube ran up to a bag next to his bed. I couldn't see it under his shirt, but I knew that his ribs were bandaged too. Little cuts dusted his face like freckles.

"I'm starting to understand why they didn't tell you," I said to him. Mello would be lucky if he was cleared to go in 20 days.

Mello frowned. "You're supposed to be on my side."

I was very tempted to say that I was always on his side, but I didn't. It sounded dumb, even in my head. So I said "Kira will still be there in 20 days," instead.

Mello still looked unhappy.

"Anything I can do for you?" I asked.

"Break me out?" Mello asked me hopefully.

I shook my head. I hadn't flown across an ocean to let Mello kill himself at the first possible moment.

"Can you stay then?" he asked.

I nodded.

There was an awkward silence.

"Did you give them a name yet?" I asked, eager to talk about something.

Mello nodded. "Aiden Rivers."

I couldn't help but smile. Aiden meant "fire" and Rivers was Near's true last name. Put together, Mello's name meant "Fire Near".

"How ironic," said dryly.

Mello nodded. "I thought so."

"You know this make you and Near related, right?" I asked.

Mello dismissed it. "We all have a common ancestor."

I laughed. "Only you, Mello. Only you."

* * *

Mello spent the next few days sleeping and watching television, often yelling at the characters on the screen for being stupid.

I, on the other hand, was trying to keep busy. I'd taken the doctor's advice and rented a small apartment room a few blocks away from the hospital. It was nothing fancy, but I wasn't there most of the time anyway. I didn't get a job though. I could get any money I wanted through hacking. It paid better.

I'd set up what I called "Camp Matt" in my apartment. It consisted of: a bunch of computers, television screens, monitors, wires, makeshift contraptions I'd rigged up myself, and of course, meters and meters of extension cords that ran the length of the room. It looked sort of like an evil liar to the untrained eye, but to me, it was heaven. Various computers softly beeped constantly and lights were always flashing on and off. Don't ask me how much it cost. You don't want know.

I told myself that, after this, I wasn't going to spend money on anything else. I felt kinda bad about it.

I had a tiny bed in one room and a couch in the living room, but I'd pushed it to wall to make room for Camp Matt. The apartment had a kitchen too, but I only really used the microwave and the fridge. All in all, it was a pretty good little place, although it wasn't going to win any award for style. The only problem was that smoking wasn't allowed in the building, so I had to go outside every time I wanted a cigarette, annoying, but I still considered it as small price to pay.

I'd been tracking the Kira case nonstop. I had a lot to catch up on since I'd dropped it about three years ago. All I really remembered was that Kira had Killed L. I was still mad about that. Oh, and he was some completely mental guy who was trying to all criminals, because for some reason, he thought that would stop all crime. And something called a "Death Note" was involved. It was what was killing the people. Kira just had to write their names in it. I wondered if I was the only one who just saw him as a serial killer.

I visited Mello in the hospital every day, but I never brought the Kira case up to him. He brought it up to me plenty of times though. It was easy for me to tell when he'd just had his medicine, because it always made him act a little off for a couple of hours. I'm sure he was in pain all the time, causing the doctors to give him some kind of painkiller that affected his reasoning. In those times, he seemed much younger, and his only concern was catching Kira. I had to talk him out of leaving more than a few times. I'm sure various nurses had to do it when I wasn't around. Mello would sometimes remember various snippets of conversation afterwards, but he never remembered the whole thing, and it drove him crazy.

He asked me if I could write the conversations down.

"Hey, Mello," I said one of these such occasions. I had a notebook and pencil ready.

"They changed my bandages," Mello informed me.

I began to write as I talked. "That's the third time, isn't it?" I asked.

"What are you doing?" Mello asked, seeing the paper.

"I'm writing down what you say," I told him.

"Why?"

"Because you asked me to. It's so you can remember later on."

"Can you write down your conversations with Near?" Mello asked.

I shook my head. "I don't talk to Near."

"Oh," Mello's face fell. "What about Kira?" he asked hopefully.

"I don't talk to Kira either," I said a little confused.

Mello shook his head. "No, not that. Did you find him yet?"

"Not yet."

"Near?"

"No."

"Good. 'Cause if you caught him, then I wouldn't be able to. And Near never can," Mello explained.

Mello's reasoning at its finest.

"Yeah," I said.

"It's only been three days," Mello changed topics now that he knew that Near hadn't beat him yet. "I can't do 17 more. I have to go."

"Whoa, slow down there," I told him. "You don't need to leave. I've got everything covered."

Mello tried to get out of bed, but failed miserably.

"Ow," he complained holding his side.

"I keep telling you not to leave," I said annoyed. "Why do you never listen?"

"Kira more important?" Mello guessed.

"Than me?" I asked feeling even more annoyed.

Mello shook his head vehemently. "Than _me_." He pointed at himself. "It goes Near, you, Kira, and _then_ me."

I ignored the fact that Near was placed higher than me on Mello's "important list". I couldn't win every battle.

"Um, ok," I said trying to come up with an answer. "How about you put you at the top of the list for the next 17 days?"

Mello shook his head. "Near goes first. I have to beat Near."

I sighed. It was like talking to a brick wall. We kept going in an endless loop, always coming back to Near.

Mello seemed to have noticed my expression.

"Are you leaving?" he asked. He sounded anxious. Like he thought I was mad at him, and I was going to get up, walk out, and never come back.

"Um, not yet," I said. "How about we don't focus on Near for now?"

Mello still looked crestfallen, but he agreed with a small "Ok."

"So," I said, relieved that I finally got Mello to drop it. "How have you been?"

* * *

Mello grew increasingly impatient the more that time drug on. He'd gotten to the point where he didn't need to be constantly monitored, I'm pretty sure most people knew about his situation.

It was at this point when we we're given two options. One was to let Mello's own skin heal as much as it could. After numerous assessments, it was decided that the burns themselves would heal enough to be functional. The other option was a skin graft. It would, overall, be more functional, look neater, have less complications later on in life, but it would take more time to heal initially. Time was not something Mello was willing to give up.

"If we are going to do the skin graft, we need to do it the next few days," The doctor told Mello. "You need to decide soon."

He nodded. "Matt," he called.

"Yeah?" I asked.

"I want a second opinion."

"Ok," I said. I crossed the room and sat down in the chair next to his bed.

"We don't have enough time," Mello said quietly. "Do we?"

"I don't know," I said. "I've been trying to get in contact with Near, but, so far, no luck."

Mello frowned.

"Mello," I said. "How bad is it?"

I hadn't seen him without his bandages yet. The last time I'd seen his face, it had been covered in blood and blisters and burned so badly, it burned my hand.

I looked down at my palm. The burn was still there. It had a dark red color, and was extremely painful whenever it touched anything. I'd covered it with a Band-Aid. I wasn't planning on telling Mello about it. He felt bad enough already.

Mello raised his hand to his face and began to pull lightly on the bandage, but he paused.

"It's fine if I show him, right?" he asked the doctor.

She nodded. "Just be very careful. Do it like I showed you."

Mello nodded and began to unwrap his face. After the first layer, the bandages became flecked with spots of blood, and some clear fluid that I thought might be plasma.

"Is that normal?" I asked.

Mello nodded. "It's getting better. It used to be a lot worse."

Mello removed the final layer of bandages and took of the gauze under that. It was kind of sickening to see just how much stuff he had to keep on his face.

He turned his face so I looked right into his eyes.

The right side of his face still looked raw. It ran down across the bridge of his nose and cut off just under his cheekbone. The dark pinkish-reddish color contrasted greatly with the rest of his pale skin. A diamond pattern was stretched across the entire burn. Maybe from the gas mask? It joined roughly with the uninjured skin leaving white and slightly raised patches, almost like stitches. The scar continued down his neck and presumably over his shoulder as well.

His eye stood out against his skin, a bright patch of blue in a sea of red. I was surprised that it was still even there. I saw it follow my eyes, and I realized that Mello could still see out of it. That almost seemed impossible to me.

"Well," Mello asked.

"It's…" I wasn't sure what to say. It was weird, and yet it felt right. All the contrast, and the scars felt like they'd always been there. They matched Mello's personality-his almost bipolar nature. One minute he'd be calm and happy, but the next, he'd snap and erupt. I could definitely picture him with the new scar on his face yelling at, well, just about everyone. This felt like Mello's face.

"It's good," I said.

Mello looked a little happier at that. At least he didn't look worried anymore. "You could live with this?" he asked.

That surprised me. I hadn't thought that Mello had cared about my opinion, not really. Now, he was asking my opinion like I was the deciding factor. It seemed so backwards to me. I remembered Mello's list. Apparently I was second on it. Did that mean that my opinion mattered more than his? That was so wrong. I was the assistant. I'd always been.

I looked at Mello.

"You want to keep them, don't you?"

He nodded.

"Good," I said forcing a cheerful tone into my voice. "Because, these are the coolest scars you could have gotten. You look badass."

"It's cause I am," Mello answered without missing a beat.

I rolled my eyes.

* * *

Mello went back to recovering, this time with renewed determination. I could almost see him willing his body to get better.

I tried to be with him as much as possible, where it was more for him, or me, I wasn't sure.

"No, you idiot!" I heard Mello yell as I stood outside his door, about to open it.

"It can't be! Just look at the crime scene! It's the work of a right handed person! He's clearly left handed! Just look at his hair part!"

"Hey, Mello," I said opening the door.

"The TV's being stupid," Mello said in way of greeting.

"Do you have to do that?" I asked. "You know they can't hear you."

He replied that it one of his only sources for fun, and besides, it's not like it hurt anyone. It was hard to argue with that logic especially when Mello gave me puppy dog eyes.

After his initial breakdown, Mello had grown increasingly comfortable around me. He didn't care how stupid he looked in front of me, which made me very happy. He almost seemed normal at times.

Mello, himself, said it was weird just how much he talked. Until now, he'd been isolated-quite literally. The reason I hadn't been able to locate him was because he'd been hiding out, and then in various hideouts that the Mafia had assigned him. He only went outside for missions much like Wammy's house, but it was always under cover of darkness.

The only reason he'd made such a fuss and got himself found out was because he didn't have enough money to fund his research anymore.

"You're kidding," I asked incredulously.

Mello shook his head.

"Seriously?"

Mello made a small displeased sound in the back of his throat.

"Like for real?"

Mello glowered at me. "Yes, for real," he said in a tight voice.

I sighed loudly and shook my head at him, a smile already on my face.

Mello's frown deepened.

"Ok, ok," I said gaining my composure back. "I'm sorry."

There was a pause.

"But that's a really stupid reason!" I blurted out. "Here, I can show you: Hacking 101, idiot."

"You know what?" Mello asked. "Maybe I'm just not good with computers. You know what else? I don't have to be."

"But how else are you going to get all the information? Computers have everything—"

"I said _I_ didn't have to be good with computers," Mello interrupted.

His eyes fell on me.

"I feel so used right now," I complained.

Mello smiled evilly at me.

I smiled back at him, but in the back of my mind I was worried.

The Mafia hadn't come to the hospital looking for him yet, which was a good thing. I wondered if they were looking for him? Did they want him back? Were they all dead? Had they decided Mello wasn't worth the effort? After a while, I assumed they'd probably assumed that he was dead, which was fine with me. I don't think I would let him go with them if they did come to take him away, probably resulting in me getting killed. I mean, I barely wanted to leave him to go home and sleep. I was worried that one day I'd come to the hospital and he'd be gone.

Still, every day, I'd arrive, and Mello would still be there. I became much more relaxed as I saw that he had no intention of leaving me again. It turns out I have abandonment issues. Who knew? I guess I could add that to the long list of thing mentally wrong with me.

Mello seemed to be getting better and better each day. His little cuts healed up and his skin color was slowly returning to normal. I saw him without his bandages a couple more times. His scars looked better, but Mello would never look the same again.

* * *

"Two more days," Mello informed me happily one day.

I smiled. "See? I told you could wait 20 days,"

Mello hit me in the face lightly with his pillow. "Don't you dare jinx it, Matt!"

"Shut up, Mello," I answered.

His smile faded, and he got quite. I knew Mello well enough to know he'd just thought of something troubling.

"So," he started. "After those two days, I'm going to leave the hospital."

"Yeah, I know," I said. "Seriously, it's all you talk about."

Mello didn't seem to register my comment.

"I was just wondering, um, where are you staying? I don't have anywhere to stay, so I just wondered I could rent somewhere close, you know? So we could disuse Kira and stuff without driving hours."

Mello looked nervously at me.

"You, idiot," I said. "You're staying with me."

"Huh?"

"You honestly thought I was going to let you just go off where ever?" I asked. "I'm antisocial, not a psychopath. Besides," I added. "I get lonely when I'm at home."

 **AN: Hey, guys. I have finals this upcoming week. I'm probably not going to have a lot of time to write, so the next chapter might be a few days late. I'll definitely have it up by Sunday, and be back to my schedule of Fridays for 2 weeks from now.**


	7. Level 7

**AN: Hello. I realize I'm 2 days late. When I said it'd be up by Sunday, I didn't take into account the sheer amount of motivation I wasn't going to have. These last few days have been a pattern of work, zzz, work, Christmas shopping, zzz, choir rehearsal, choir performance, zzz. But I'm back now!**

 **We're entering the section I like to call Attack on Fluff. Don't think too hard about it; we're just taking a short fluff break before the plot starts up again.**

 **Thank you Lala the Screaming Fangirl and sallycoombs for your kind reviews. I love you guys.**

Mello was released from the following day, along with some emergency medicine, lots of painkillers, several warnings, meters and meters of bandages and gauze, and the order to come back in a week for checkups. Although he was, technically, good to go, he still had a lot of recovering to do.

He still had the burns on his chest and shoulder bandaged (It hurts when they rub against my shirt), but he'd left off the ones on his face, preferring to be able to see. He was told that he needed to alternate the amount of time he had the bandages on and could take them off for a few hours a day. If he had to reactions, he could extend the amount of time until, in the end, he never wore the bandages. This wasn't so much a medical thing as a comfort thing.

Mello's arm was still in the cast, and he had a ridged plastic brace the wrapped around his ribs, keeping them in place.

Despite this, Mello seemed happier than I'd seen him in a long time. Maybe too happy.

As we walked the short distance from the hospital to my apartment, Mello kept explaining his plan to me.

"...so, we know about Near, but he didn't necessarily know about us. He thinks I'm dead, or at the very least, on my own. Right, Matt?"

"I didn't tell him."

"Great, so we can use that. Also, now that I have you, I'll be able to do my research faster, and it will be easier to get information."

"So, I'm basically working for you."

"Yeah, pretty much."

"So, am I going to get compensation or something?"

"What?"

"Like are you going to pay me?"

"Pay you with the money that you hacked and then gave to me? No."

"So, do I get free health care?"

"We don't live in Canada."

"Could we move to Canada?"

"Do you _want_ to move to Canada?"

"I guess not. It seems like an awful amount of work."

"You've gotten me off topic. This is serious, Matt. Stop laughing! I'm trying to formulate a strategy to not only beat Near, but catch one of the biggest serial killers of all time."

"And you're doing great, but don't you think it's a bit too soon?"

"First of all: Your tone is dripping with so much sarcasm, it's going to get all over the stairs. Secondly, and this is the important one: Near has had all the time I was recovering to get ahead of me. I order for me to even have the same amount of information as him I'm going to ne-"

"Wait, we're here."

I paused and unlocked my door.

"After you."

I followed Mello into my apartment, and nearly ran into him when he stopped.

Mello stood at the entrance to Camp Matt with a mixture of horror and admiration on his face. Camp Matt blinked innocently back at him.

"I'm going to take a wild guess here and say you don't have many people over," he said.

I took off my vest/jacket and threw it on my couch. "Are you kidding? I hate people," I said flopping down next to it. "Can you see me with guests?"

Mello shook his head and moved my vest/jacket to the ground so he could sit next to me on the couch. "What do we do now?" he asked.

"Now we sleep," I said.

"But I've done nothing but sleep for the last month!" complained Mello.

"Hey! You're not the one who stayed up all night getting information from the Japanese government!" I retorted. I knew it wasn't fair to Mello; he'd been cooped up for months, but I hadn't been able to sleep last night. I'd been far too worried to allow myself to drift off, and thus had used the extra time to get some work done.

Mello muttered something unintelligible under his breath.

"Fine," I put up my hands in defeat. "Go buy something." Hoping Mello had learned to drive, I dug around in my pocket, taking out my car keys. I was currently the proud owner of a red 1968 Chevrolet Camaro. Yes, I did know that red cars statistically get stopped more than any color car. No, I didn't care.

I tossed Mello the keys. He regarded them confused, his head titled to the right.

"What do I buy?" he asked.

I sighed. I really wanted to sleep. "I don't know. What do you have?"

Mello frowned. "Nothing I guess."

"Great, then buy everything."

It wasn't much of an answer, but I'm sure Mello could do something with it.

I gave him my wallet too. Money had pretty much become unlimited to me. Not that I'd ever abuse that power. Wink wink. But seriously.

"Ok, bye," I said leaning back against the couch and closing my eyes.

…

I was awakened by the sound of angry shouts.

"I don't care if you do have a broken arm. You'll wish that was the only thing wrong with you when I get done with you!"

Still groggy, and more than a little annoyed, I opened my door to find Mell engaged in a heated discussion with one of my neighbors.

"You," I said to Mello. "Get inside."

When Mello refused to leave, I pulled the back of his shirt and pulled him away from the angry man. I think his name was James, or was it Jake? Something with a "J".

"And you," I said rounding on J-guy. "If you're threatening physical harm towards my friend, I'm going to have to call the police."

"No, no. That's not what I meant," J-guy said. "It's just that your _friend_ —"

He spat the word out like it was an insult.  
"I'm not saying he didn't deserve it," I countered. "My friend's a moron with anger management issues," I added because I could practically see Mello on the other side of the door listening. "Good evening."

With that I left J-guy in the hallway.

"Can't you just leave him alone?" I asked Mello as I opened my apartment door.

Mello shook his head. "He's annoying."

"What did you do?" I moaned, exasperated.

"Nothing really."

Like hell he did nothing.

"Whatever," I decided.

Mello reluctantly moved to the kitchen where he started going through the plastic bags on the table. As I watched, he took a huge candy bar out of the bag and tore off the top of the wrapper.

I glared at him.

"What?" Mello asked innocently. "You said "buy everything" and they just happened to have this."

I tried to stay mad because his behavior so far had been abysmal, but in truth, it was pretty cool candy bar. The thing was as long as my forearm and thick as one of the textbooks I was supposed to read before Wammy's house had marked me down as a lost cause. I wondered where Mello had found it.

"So what else is in here?" I asked poking at the bags Mello had left on the table.

He looked up from where he was eating his candy. Seriously, why wasn't the guy 200 kilos by now? Almost all the food he ate was chocolate.

"Stuff," he said, his word were garbled by the mouthful of chocolate.

"Dude, close your mouth."

Mello swallowed with great effort.

"Clothes mostly. All was my stuff was at my hide out, and I can't exactly go back."

Oh. I guess I wasn't the only one who'd left everything behind.

I looked at my clock eager to change the subject. Crap, it was 5:30 already.

"It's already started," I said

"What has?" Mello asked.

"A movie marathon I wanted to watch. I think it started about half an hour ago."

Mello looked interested. "What movie?"

"You know those books I used to read about that boy wizard?"

"Yeah?"

"Those movies," I said hopefully. I really wanted to watch them, because the 7th one was going to come out this year and I wanted to be properly caught up, but if Mello refused, I'd go along with.

"I've never seen them," Mello said after a moment of consideration.

"What?" I was shocked. How could Mello have never watched them? They were practically my childhood. Well, that and videogames. "I don't even know you anymore. You know the kid's British right?"

Mello just shrugged.

That settled it. There was no way Mello was going to get out of this now. His opinions officially no longer mattered. He was going to watch them and he was going to love them as much as I did. I grabbed his hand a pulled him over to the couch where I'd set up one of my televisions for actual viewing programs purposes.

"You sit there," I told him. "I'll be right back."

Mello was flipping through the channels when I returned with a box of cereal. We didn't have any popcorn, so it would have to do. Besides, Mello had his chocolate bar that probably weighed 5 kilos. I kicked off my shoes and joined him on the couch. I let him flip through a few more channels before snatching the remote out of his hands. He protested for a few seconds, but I told him to shut up so we didn't miss more of the movie.

Mello watched the movie for all of about two seconds before turning to me. "I've got no idea what's going on. Why is there a troll in the school?"

I sighed. I could see this was going to take a lot of explaining, so launched into a detailed plot summary of the movies as well as several of the key details that had only been mentioned in the book as well as the ending that hadn't come out yet.

"So then, Regulus goes to the cave where Voldemort hid the locket, because he's pretty much the only one who's figured out he's been making horcruxes. He's like "If I destroy this one, then Voldemort will become mortal." He doesn't realize that Voldemort has 5 at this point, because he hasn't met Harry yet, let alone Nagi—what?" I asked because up until this point Mello's expression had been varying degree of confusion, but it had suddenly shifted. He was grinning at me. He couldn't be happy about the subject matter. The last I checked, the story of Regulus Black's descent into evilness and then, years later, to see the error of his ways only to be immediately killed by inferi wasn't a funny story.

"You're an obsessed fanboy."

I blinked, frozen for a second. Then, I hit him on the back of the head with a pillow. "I am not!"

"Ow, watch the burns," Mello complained.

"Sorry."

There was a silence.

"I am not an obsessed fanboy!" I blurted out.

Yeah, you are," Mello laughed. "You know more facts about it then Wikipedia. You've probably memorized this movie."

"Not on purpose," I reluctantly confirmed. That wasn't fair. Mello knew I had a good memory.

"Ok, I'm Potterhead, not fanboy," I said. "There's a difference."

Mello laughed again. Apparently, he found that really funny. I would have minded more, except I was just so good to see him happy. The image of Mello crying, telling me what he'd done these last few years, blaming himself for everything that had gone wrong, was still plastered in my mind. It was kind of like learning that your friend had almost died as a small child. You know logically that they're ok now, that they've moved on, they're not in danger now, and you try not to treat them differently, but the knowledge is always in the back of your mind.

I had an urge to hug him again, but I didn't. That's weird, right? I told myself. It was ok in the hospital because I thought he was going to die and then was really relived when he didn't, but now that he's ok, it's not ok, right? I wasn't sure. I wasn't the best at social skills stuff. I used to act solely on instinct, but the more I was around other people, the more I realized that there seemed to be unwritten rules that everyone followed. I was still trying to get used to it, but I suspected I'd never quite get it.

"So," Mello said, trying to get over his laughing fit. "So, how many of these movies are there?"

"Six so far," I answered.

"And they're playing all of them now?"

"Uh-huh."

"And the movies are all about two and a half hours?"

"Yep."

"We're going to be here all night and into tomorrow."

I nodded. That's kind of the point.

Mello shook his head in disbelief.

"Ready?" I asked.

"Yeah, let's do it."

I turned the movie back on.

"Ok, what's this!?" Mello asked annoyed. "There was a troll and now they're playing chess."

I made a mental note not to turn off the television anymore. We were going to miss too much if I kept trying to explain the plot.

After trying to bring Mello up to speed, we fell into a comfortable silence as we watched the movies. Mello occasionally asked for clarification on something, but by the second one, he'd seemed to have caught on to the story.

Honestly, I spent more of the time watching Mello's face. I'd seen the movies a million times each, and, like I'd already admitted, they were memorized. I could watch them over and over again and they would never change, but Mello's face was a different. He'd only experience this once. His eyes, one blue one surrounded by red, reflected the story and the shadows danced across his face. I got to watch the range of emotions cross his face as he became wrapped up in the story. He only yelled at couple characters one or twice.

"They can't hear you," I reminded him.

"They're magical."

I shrugged. "Point taken."

I then proceeded to tell Harry Voldemort's entire plan.

"Nope, I don't think he can hear me. It's almost like this is a movie!" I added sarcastically.

Mello glared at me.

I thought he might be mad at me, but he seemed to only being doing it for comedic effect. It was the only part of his sense of humor I couldn't read all the time. It bugged me.

Mello yawned and leaned against the couch, watching the movie with one eye.

I felt strangely at home. More at home than I ever had at Wammy's house and definitely more than when I was living in the apartment alone. I kind of felt safe. It was a nice feeling. I often felt worried, or nervous, or just kind of there. I blame my depression for that. I wondered if this kind of feeling was normal for everyone. All the kids at Wammy's house never seemed to like being around other people. Normal people had friends though. Maybe I was more normal than I had thought.

I ran though the list in my mind: My IQ was far higher than the average person, I hated the outdoors, I loved video games, I could hack almost anything, I lacked some very basic social skills, I only had one friend, I was currently trying to bring a serial killer to justice—no. Maybe I wasn't so normal after all.

I decided to give up on the matter for now.

I turned my attention back to the movie. The apartment had grown dark over the hours making it harder to watch Mello's face. I hadn't planned on falling asleep after the first half an hour, but I was so tied. I hadn't slept the night before and my nap had not been nearly long enough. Mello was cuddled up next to me and the familiar sounds of the movie made me relax a little too much. I drifted off with the sounds of magic playing in the background.

That night I dreamed I was back at Wammy's house. Mello tried to leave, but I followed him on Sirius's flying motorbike. I tackled him off of it, and we both went, spinning, falling, into an abyss.

I heard a voice above me and looked up to see L. He had wings and was flying next to us. He held out his hand. I took it and he pulled us out of the abyss and vanished. I was standing on the edge of a cliff. Near stood in front of me, a Pokeball in his hand.

I searched for mine, but all my Pokemon were gone. Everything had been replaced by Magikarp. Hundreds of Magikarp. They overwhelmed me, pushing me off the cliff, and, this time, no one came to save me.


	8. Level 8

**AN: Well, this is embarrassing. Let's just pretend I took an intentional break...I promise: I will not abandon this story. Matt is my baby and I love him. I have so much more K2LL in production. This fic will go on! I have, like, 1,000 words left to edit in the next chapter. In fanfic terms means I'm practically done.**

It was late when I woke up the next morning. One of the many benefits of not working was that I didn't have to get up early. I yawned and pushed my head off of Mello's shoulder. He was still sleeping. Without his ever present scowl, he looked almost peaceful. His bangs were falling in his eyes covering some of his scar. He was going to need to get a haircut soon. That thought made me smile; I knew he hated them.

I got up from the couch and went into the kitchen to make myself breakfast before remembering that we'd eaten all of the cereal last night. Curse Mello! This was clearly his fault. Oh well, I didn't really like cereal anyway. Wait, why did I buy so much of it then? That was it; I wasn't going to buy it any more. I made a mental note of this and made myself toast for breakfast.

I wondered if I should wake Mello up too, but decided against it. I didn't want to make him worse. Come to think of it, why was I treating him like he was made of glass anyway? This was getting ridiculous. From now on, Mello was just regular Mello, not sick Mello, not injured Mello, not recovering Mello, regular Mello. Ok. Regular Mello with some severe, but healing, burns...and some broken bones...he was totally fine.

"Hey! Mello! Wake up!" I shouted.

He started awake and half rose from the couch, eyes wide, before realizing that it was just me.

"Dammit, Matt," he said annoyed. "Most people don't shout at other people to get them up. I thought we were under attack or something."

He sat back down on the couch.

"Come on," I said going over to stand over him.

"I just got up, like, five seconds ago. Give me a minute."

I sat down next to him, and gave him about ten seconds.

"Come on!" I finally said "You wanted to do something yesterday."

Mello groaned. "I never understood you early morning people."

"It's 10:30," I corrected.

Mello nodded. "Early."

I grabbed the pillow on the couch and smacked him in the face, careful to only hit his uninjured side. His hair flew out in all directions.

"Matt, I will hack you into pieces in your sleep!" Mello yelled, but he was grinning. I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing. Mello's death threats never worked on me.

"Hurry up, Mr. Serial Killer," I said getting up.

Mello's smile instantly vanished. His expression turned hard and he stared at the floor.

" _Stupid!"_ I mentally cursed myself. I had to be more careful with what I said around Mello.

"Hey," I tried. He stiffened up next to me, and wouldn't look at me. It upset me. We'd been doing so well until now. I'd done everything in my power to get Mello to forget about what he'd done before last month. Well, I hadn't brought it up to him and changed the subject every time he wanted to talk about Kira. That was pretty much the extent of my skills. "I'm sorry."

Mello shook his head. "I'm not. Those people knew what they were getting into. It's not my fault," he said in a tight voice. It sounded forced. It was painfully obvious to me that he was trying to convince himself. I wasn't sure what to do, but I wanted to make him feel better.

"You want to talk about it?" I asked.

"No," he snapped. "I'm fine."

"You sure?"

"I said I'm fine, Matt! Now can you just drop it?"

I nodded at little unsure of myself. This was the closest Mello had been to blowing up since we met again. I remembered that day back when he'd run away from Wammy's house. I didn't want it to happen again.

Mello sighed and leaned back against the couch. "It's ok," said. "I'm just still adjusting, you know?"

"Ok," I felt cold inside.

"I'm gonna go take a walk while you wake up," I said. "I'll be back soon."

It was raining outside. Just my luck.

The rain dripped down my hair and onto the back of my neck. I wished my vest had a hood, but it didn't. Growing up in Winchester, I'd seen my fair share of rain, but that didn't mean I liked it.

I quickly realized how much I hated being outdoors about 30 seconds after I started walking. I probably would have gone back inside, but Mello was still in there. I knew he wasn't mad at me, but I still felt like the reason he was upset. I'd been trying to help him recover as much as possible. Now I'd gone and reminded him of whatever he'd been doing the last 5 and a half years.

It bothered him, I knew. He was a lot more damaged than he let on. I didn't know if he'd ever tell me everything, but I wanted to be the one he eventually told something. I'd wait until then. I, of all people, knew that this kind of thing took time. Mello pretended not to care, but I wasn't that dumb. When you start keeping big secrets from everyone, you start to notice when others do it too. The way they avoid certain topics, the inflection in their voice, the humor they use to hid their real emotions. Well, at least that's what it was like for me; maybe I just had good observational skills.

I saw people as candies. Most people were like a taffy, or caramel. They had the same consistency throughout. It took the same effort to talk to them and build up a friendship with them. The other people were hard candies. You'd chip away at the shell with resistance and no reward. You'd think they hated you a month in. If you kept chipping away, eventually, you'd break through the shell and into the center. That's when the person would really become your friend. It took more time, and a lot more effort, but in the end, you'd formed an unbreakable connection with the other person.

I paused and shook myself. What the hell was I thinking about? What the hell was wrong with my mind? What a weird analogy.

The rain soaked my clothes. My hair dripped mini droplets into my eyes. I'd left my pair of goggles in my room. My boots, apparently not waterproof, started getting soaked from all the puddle on the ground. Well, this was miserable.

I turned to go back to the apartment, I couldn't avoid Mello forever, but something caught my eye. A lump of orange in the greys and browns that made up the outdoors.

Curious, I moved closer to see what it was.

It was an animal huddled against the side of a building trying to keep out of the rain. Its fur was matted and had mud stuck in it.

"Hey there, buddy," I said squatting closer. It was a cat.

The cat tuned it head to stare at me with big green eyes.

"What are you doing out here?" I asked the cat. Weren't cats supposed to hate the rain? "Are you lost?" I asked. It occurred to me that this cat might now have a home to go to.

The cat didn't say anything.

I held out my hand for it to sniff. I hoped it wouldn't bite me.

"Hi," I said again. I kept talking to it as a reached my hand out and petted lightly on the head. The cat didn't move, so I kept petting it. Its fur was wet with the rain, and strands of it clung to my cold fingers.

"That's a good boy," I said. Was it a boy? I didn't know. I reached around to its neck looking for tags or a collar or something. I couldn't find anything. As I petted it, I realized that the cat, although furry, was extremely thin. You weren't supposed to be able to a cat's ribs, were you?

"Are you microchipped, buddy?" I asked the cat.

It didn't answer.

"You're really bad at this whole talking to people thing," I told it.

It just looked at me with its huge eyes.

I wondered how many people had walked past the cat. How many people had seen it and decided it just wasn't their problem. It made me sad. The cat wasn't wanted.

I glanced back in the direction of my apartment. It did say we could have one small dog or cat. Maybe I could just take the cat there for now, just until I was able to find the owner. I couldn't just leave it out here in the rain.

I reached out my other hand and, very carefully, picked the cat up. I wasn't sure I was doing it right; I'd never held an animal of any kind before. I was kind of afraid that I'd break the cat, but eventually found that I could hold it in my arms, against my chest pretty well.

The cat didn't protest, but I could feel its claw dig into my skin, curling around the holes it made in my shirt. It turned its head to look at me with its huge eyes.

"It's ok," I told it. I'm just going to take to my house. We'll find your owners after that."

I made my back to the apartment. I couldn't open the door to my apartment, because I was afraid of dropping the cat.

"Open up, Mello," I called kicking the door with one of my feet.

I heard Mello's voice say something, but I couldn't make it out through the door. After a few seconds, I heard the lock turn and Mello opened the door.

"Why can't you just—" Mello started, but abruptly cut himself off. "What it that?" he asked.

"A cat," I said stepping into the room.

"Why?" Mello asked following me. "Why is it a cat?"

"You're asking me why the cat's a cat?" I asked.

Mello frowned. "No," he said annoyed. "I'm asking _why do you have a cat_. It's been 15 minutes at most."

"I found it," I answered. "He doesn't have any collar or tags, so I'm going to look after him until we can find his owners. Where are our towels?"

I put the cat down on the couch.

Mello was still staring skeptically at the cat when I reentered the living room.

"How are you going to look after this cat?" Mello asked when he saw me.

I shrugged. "It can't be that hard."

"Matt, you can barely feed yourself."

"Yeah, but I'm still good. Besides, I don't think you have the right to judge anyone else's eating habits."

Mello shrugged. "Point taken. But do you even know what to feed it?"

I smiled. "That's what the Internet's for."

Mello still didn't look convinced. "I'm more worried about the food making its way from the store to the cat rather than where we have the right food."

We both turned to look back at the cat. It had curled up on the couch and was rubbing its paw on its face, trying to clean it.

"You're seriously saying that you can deny that?" I said pointing to the cat.

Mello scowled, but he didn't say anything. I took that as it was totally fine if the cat stayed with us, and handed Mello a towel. I gave him a meaningful look, and he started to dry off the cat.

I ran the other towel over my head a couple times, before drying the cat as well.

Mello winced as droplets of water from my hair fell on his hand.

"You're still all wet," he complained.

I shrugged.

Mello frowned as the cat batted the towel out of his hand. He gripped onto Mello's towel and started chewing on it.

"I think he's hungry," I said.

"Or evil," Mello added.

"Shut up, Mello. He's not evil," I looked back at the cat. "Finish drying him. I'm going to look up what to feed him."

Mello groaned. "We're keeping it, aren't we?"

I smiled. "Well, if we can't find his owners."

I stepped forward, but paused at the entrance to Camp Matt.

"Right," I muttered. "Electrical. I'm going to change first."

"Ok," I said, clicking on another link. "So, don't feed him milk. Apparently, that's just a common misconception."

I paused. "Do we have a pet store near here?"

Mello looked up from where he was sitting on the couch. "Why you asking me? I was in a hospital until yesterday."

"Ok, so no pet store yet," I said turning back to the computer. "I guess I'll have to find one soon."

After a few more clicks, I said. "It says here that if we don't have any cat food, we can use boiled chicken."

"Does that mean we can finally use the stove?" Mello asked hopefully. "Wait," he paused. "Is that too complicated for you?"

"Very funny."

Mello snorted.

"Also, there seems to be a pet store a few miles away from here."

I glanced out the window. It was still raining.

"Maybe you should go out," I suggested.

Mello just glared at me.

"Or we could wait until the rain stops."

" _Or_ you could just go out in the rain again," Mello said firmly.

"Ok, ok," I got up from Camp Matt and grabbed my car keys. I wasn't walking.

Mello was sitting on the couch with the cat when I returned. '

I crossed over to him and set the bag of food on the floor. After trying and failing to open with my hands, I went a got a kitchen knife. The cut wasn't exactly a line; it was more off a jagged rip, but hey! It opened the bag!

I took some of the food and put it in the makeshift bowl I'd fashioned out of a tubaware container. I put it down next to the cat who had been watching me eagerly throughout the whole process.

The cat flicked his tail under my chin as he started to eat.

I felt irrationally, immensely proud.

"And you said I couldn't do it," I told Mello.

"You bought cat food. That's not particularly hard."

"Did you know there's not just one kind of cat food?" I asked. Mello muttered something like, yes, of course there are, but I cut him off. "Well I didn't. There were 14 different kinds and thy all looked the same."

Mello smiled at my misfortune.

"And then," I continued. "There was a lady who wanted to talk to me about her pet. Apparently, it's a purebred labradoodle, whatever that is. They had to drive across 5 states to get him, and he's only expected to live for another few years because of all his health problems." I paused. "That's mental. They did have parakeets though. They were cute."

Mello shook his head, ignoring my complete lack of any transition from bad to good. "I'm saying this right now: we're not getting a bird."

He looked pointedly at the cat who had almost finished the food I'd given him.

"He's not our cat," I protested. "That reminds me: I need to make found posters for him." I looked around. "We don't have a camera," I said more to myself than Mello.

Mello laughed at that. "Why the _hell_ would we have a camera? It is, quite possibly, the worst thing either of us could carry."

"I'm going to buy a camera then."

"No! We are not going to go playing in Near—"

"Kira."

"Kira's hands because of a stupid cat."

I frowned. "Can you draw?"

"Um, not really," Mello answered.

I paused. "Neither can I…I'm going to learn."

Mello groaned. "For the love of God, Matt. Just describe the damn cat."

"Fine," I grumbled.

Mello scowled and I could tell he was still upset. It seemed he couldn't be bothered with everyday things anymore. He'd been home for less than a day, and he already wanted to get working.


	9. Level 9

**AN: Hey, guys. I hope you all had a good Easter. The plot picks up about halfway through, and more plot in the following chapters. :D Yay! I'm terrible at filler.**

I knew that Mello wanted to get working on the Kira case. I knew I should be doing more to help him. I knew we'd have to start occasionally. I knew Mello was getting more and more frustrated with every passing day. I knew it was within both of our best interests to just start now. I knew all these things, but I just couldn't bring myself to start.

If I let Mello start working, his obsession would take over. He wouldn't eat or sleep, or do anything else. He'd make irrational choices. He'd be ripped apart again. He was already so unstable.

I'd thought that when I first saw him again, that he was the exact same as when we were kids. That wasn't true. The more time I spent with him, the more I realized that he'd gotten broken somewhere along the line. He couldn't get along with anyone. He'd pick fights where no should have existed. He was always trying to prove he was better than other people.

It was hard to take him anywhere.

It was strange, but the one thing that calmed him down better than me was the cat.

Although he'd seemed to hate it at first, I'd caught Mello sitting with the cat more time than I could count: it curled up next to him, his hand running lightly over it's back.

I knew that people with dogs heart rates' were considerably calmed down. Was it the same for cats?

We'd taken the cat to the vet a few days after we got him. It was strange experience for me. I'd never thought I'd ever get a pet. I'd just never thought about it.

"There's no microchip," the vet had told us. "Although we've tested the blood work, and he's updated on all of his shots."

"So, you can't find the owner?" I asked.

I looked at the cat who was sitting on Mello's lap.

The vet shook his head. "There probably is no owner. He'd been wandering the streets for at least a month before you found him. It happens a lot around here. People get a pet thinking it'll be easy to care for it. When it turns out to be too much work for them, they just get rid of it instead of finding it a new home."

"Oh."

"You can bring him to the shelter. They'll take care of him there."

I saw Mello's arm tighten around the cat. The doctor seemed to notice it too.

"Of course, you can adopt him after he's registered if you want. Just check with your parents first."

Mello frowned. "I'm nineteen."

The vet didn't seem to care. "Yes, I suppose you can legally adopt him yourself, it's just recommended you check with your family first. That way you don't have to bring him back."

Mello turned to me. "Matt, is it ok if we adopt the cat?" he asked.

I groaned. Why did he have to pull me into this?

"Yes," I said annoyed. Of course I wanted the cat too, I just wished Mello had waited until we'd left. I guess he was just trying to prove that he wasn't a kid anymore. Still, bragging about having a roommate wasn't much better than living at home.

"Thank you," I said to the vet. "We'll go get him registered right now."

After filling out all of the adoption forms the cat, now named Ginger, was officially mine. It was the weirded thing I've ever done, and I've done lots of weird stuff. I never imagined I'd ever have to do something as mundane as fill out all information. Mello, since I hadn't made him a new identity, just had to sit there and do things like remind me of my birthday.

"February 1st," Mello said pointing at the page.

"I know when my birthday is. I just haven't got there yet."

* * *

Mello and I stopped by the pet shop our way home. We set up Ginger in his new home, and then, since it was still raining, I decided to take Mello where'd I'd been spending all my free time.

"Tada!" I said as the car pulled up.

Mello looked at the sign to me to back to the sign confused.

"Magi...Quest?" He asked.

I nodded. "Yeah. It's awesome!"

"It sounds like something for 5 year olds," Mello mumbled, still unconvinced.

I'd like to say his suspicious were shattered as soon as he walked in the door. I'd like to, but I couldn't.

"Hey, guys!" I said to Lavender and Dan, the two people working the front desk that day. It was a bit embarrassing, but I'd become friends with pretty much all the employees. It was actually pretty easy to talk to them. They were all geeks, so they didn't really care about my lack of social skills. When all else failed, I could always just talk to them about books, or anime, or Star Wars, or comics (DC in particular. I'm a DC guy, sorry Marvel fans), or just science, or math, or computers, or something.

"Sup," said Dan, not quite looking at me. He was pretty busy with other customers. Lavender on the other hand, seemed really interested in Mello.

"Hey, are you Mello?" she asked. "Are you feeling better? Matt said you were burned pretty badly burned in a car accident last month."

Mello glared at me. I pretended not to notice.

"Yeah, I said. He just got out of the hospital."

"Alright," Lavender said. "Matt, you know the rules. I'm just going to get Mello registered, then do you want to start him on the lighting quest?"

"Coolio."

A few minutes later Mello had a plastic wand in his hand as was looking like he wished he could be anywhere else at the moment.

"There are kids here," he said between clenched teeth.

I laughed. "Try not to step on any."

"So, I'm supposed to be doing this "Lighting quest?" Mello asked.

I nodded. "Here, follow me."

I walked over to a spot on the wall painted like a cloud and waved my "wand" as it.

There was a brief silence and then thunder crackled overhead.

"I AM ZUES!" I loudly proclaimed.

A passing kid looked at me like I'd gone mental.

Mello grabbed my arm. "Matt, seriously. What are we doing here?"

"We're having fun."

"This is role play for kids. Like, seven year olds."

"So?"

"How old are you?"

I considered that for a second. I actually did know now. I was 18. I'd be 19 in a few months.

"Just try it."

Mello glared at me.

"There's lazer tag," I offered.

Mello shook his head. "What are we even doing here?" he asked quietly.

I faulted.

"Huh?"

"We're not _doing_ anything."

"Sure we are," I said waving around at the building. "We're on a quest!"

"Matt!"

A few little kids more kids looked at us.  
Mello scowled at them. "Look, I know what you're doing."

I didn't say anything. In truth, I didn't really know what I was doing.

Mello's scowled softened a little bit, until he just looked more sad than angry.

"I know all about escapism."

"What?" I asked, not believing him. "I'm not trying to escape! I live in more of a reality than anyone else here."

"Then why are we surrounded by seven year olds, pointing bits of plastic at sensors hidden in the wall," Mello pointed out. That doesn't sound like reality."

We were attracting a crowd of elementary schoolers at this point.

My eyes felt itchy, overlarge. I tried to rub on my sleeve discretely so Mello wouldn't notice.

"Matt, I get it," Mello began. "I know you'd rather be playing games, or doing…whatever this is..." he paused. "But you can't: _we_ can't. You know that. We have a job to do, and we're going to do it."

"But," I searched for a passable excuse. "You're hurt."

Mello laughed. "I've spent a whole freaking month in the hospital; I'm fine."

But I still didn't want to. Going back to the Kira case meant going back to everything. And everything was wrong. Mello would get mad. He'd fight with Near. I'd be left in the middle. Mello would run away again. I'd be alone. I wouldn't be able to save Mello from Kira. The world might as well burn.

I realized that I was biting the joint of my pointer finger. I pulled it away to see my teeth's indents. It might scab over later.

Mello sighed. "Running from your problems won't help anything."

That made me angry. "What do you know about it?" I spat. "Like you know anything solving your problems seeing as you _ran away_!"

Mello sighed and closed his eyes. "Don't do this here," he whispered. For once he didn't seem upset, just tired.

"I hate you," I whispered back.

"Hang out with the cat then. I'm used to it."

* * *

I did not hang out with the cat.

The cat seemed to like Mello better than me. As soon as Mello and I got home, I got on the computer. I needed to be doing something I was good at.

Mello sat down on the couch and picked up a book. Ginger climbed up the couch and sat down on Mello's lap, trying to block his view of the book. Eventually, Mello gave up trying to read, and started scratching his ears.

The only sound was my typing.

"What are you doing?" Mello suddenly asked, breaking the tension.

"I'm doing something," I said.

Mello didn't get up, but he turned his head. His good eye bore into me.

I debated lying to him, but then realized it'd never work. You try lying to geniuses; It's not easy!

"Ok, promise not to get obsessed," I started. "But I'm trying to contact someone in the SPK."

"You what!?"

Mello jumped off the couch making Ginger claw his way across his back, which did not look comfortable.

"I did it," I said. "Are you happy now?"

Mello nodded.

He didn't seem to realize just how hard it was for me to work on this case.

I ignored it the best I could. If I pretended I was fine with if for long enough, maybe I really would be.

"Halle Linder." I said pointing to the screen. "Former CIA agent, currently the only female member of the SPK."

"So?" Mello asked.

"She's the weakest link."

Mello hit me lightly on the back of the head. "That's a bit sexist."

"It's not because she's a girl!" I protested rubbing my head where Mello had hit me. "After looking up information on all the SPK, I've come up with some interesting information on her. She's not really on Near's side."

"How so?" Mello asked. He sounded much more interested this time.

"She seems to be one of the few that actually still believes in this damn cause. She doesn't care about who defeats Kira; She just believes in justice. She, and I'm just speculating here, would want the both of you to work together for a common goal. She should be willing to work with you."

Mello looked ecstatic. "How soon can you contact her?"

"Well, I'm going to have to make some adjustments to the computer," I said. "But soon."

Mello's smile was bigger than I think I've ever seen it.

I shook my head.

"I just don't understand how you ever thought you'd ever be able to do any of this without me. You're still using a flip phone." I pointed out.

"And it is a very cool flip phone!" Mello stated. He laughed a little bit, but then his expression got serious again. "You need to work on contacting Halle as soon as possible."

"Ok, ok," I said. "I will."

* * *

"Hey, Matt," Mello called out from the kitchen. "What's this in the cabinet?"

I sighed and wiped my hand over my face. I'd been working on the modifications for Halle for the last several hours and my eyes were starting to hurt.

"I don't know," I said leaving back in my chair, my hand still over my eyes. "Band-Aids? That's the only thing I keep in the cabinet."

Mello came in to the living room and stood at the entrance to Camp Matt.

I looked between a crack in my fingers to see what he was making a fuss about. In Mello hands was an orange plastic bottle with a "child proof" cap on it.

"You know I don't approve of you smoking, but if you're doing this too, we might need to stage in intervention for you. You can't help me if you're dead," he said.

I narrowed my eyes. It was one of the rare times when I couldn't tell if he was joking or not.

"Those are my depression meds," I said. I'm sure they _have_ a proper name, but that's what I called them. They were my pills, I could call them anything I wanted. I could call them cheesecake if I wanted. I would be weird, but I could.

Mello seemed to reconsider me. "You have depression?"

"Tada!" I exclaimed.

"You never told me."

I shrugged. "It's not really something that comes up in conversations."

Mello entered Camp Matt and stood next to my chair.

For the first time ever, I felt uncomfortable with him being so close to me. I felt like he was analyzing me as a test subject.

I shifted uncomfortably in my chair. "So…"

Mello blinked, and the spell seemed to break.

"Well, I'm glad you're handling it," Mello finally said. There was so much regret in his voice though.

"You're sorry you weren't there," I realized.

Mello shook his head. "No. I needed to be working on finding Kira, but yes. I wished I could have helped you."

For the first time in a long time, I remembered a few years back, back when Mello was still gone, and everything I'd gone though. I decided not to tell him that Near had helped me. Mello's inferiority complex was already big enough.

I remembered my word to him only a few hours ago. About how he just ran away. I looked at Mello's face. It was the closest to regret I'd seen him since his visit in the hospital. His eyes were downcast, focused on the floor in front of him. His hands were clasped behind his back and his feet were close together. His body language very clearly said "I'm sorry" even if his mouth was too stubborn to.

Now, as I watched his face, I did something I never in a million years thought I'd ever do again.

"Hey, do you want to stay the night?" I asked. Damn. I was a freaking adult now. This felt so weird to be asking. But at the same time, I knew that Mello didn't want to be left alone tonight. I wouldn't. The poor guy probably thought I hated him.

"Matt, I'm nineteen!" Mello protested.

There was a pause.

"I'll go get a blanket," Mello finally said.

He came back with the blanket from the couch and one of the pillows we'd watched to movie with and made a make shift bed next to my air mattress.

I laughed. "We have a perfectly good bed, and neither of us are sleeping in it."

"Shut up and go to sleep," was Mello's response.


End file.
